


History Repeating

by idelthoughts



Series: Mortinez Fics [1]
Category: Forever (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Background Case, Eventual Romance, F/M, Gen, Humor, The Big Reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-13
Updated: 2015-03-11
Packaged: 2018-03-07 10:05:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 44,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3170831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idelthoughts/pseuds/idelthoughts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jo knew.  She saw Henry die.  Now, it was a matter of hoping she would understand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Français available: [Révélation](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4007449) by [idelthoughts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/idelthoughts/pseuds/idelthoughts)



> This is a sequel to [Knowledge,](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2523689/chapters/5700833) a drabble I wrote for my 30 day challenge. 
> 
> Chapter 1 is the drabble reposted, as it's necessary reading for the sequel.

“It’s not your fault, Henry,”  Jo said for the umpteenth time, watching Henry paced the rubble-littered room.    
  
“I think it’s the definition of ‘my fault,’ frankly.”    
  
His voice was hoarse from calling out for help.   The ceiling above them creaked, and a trickle of dust showered down over them.  Henry stopped and looked up at the cracks, running his hands through his hair, and then set to pacing again.    
  
Jo tried to sit up, but the pain in her leg made her cry out.  Henry hurried over to her.    
  
“Don’t move.”  He tightened the strips of cloth from his ripped shirt that were wrapped around the long gash again, and she winced.  “If you move, you’ll start bleeding again.”  
  
Judging by the bright red everywhere and her faintness, she hadn’t stopped bleeding at all.  Henry was sweet to lie and comfort her, but reality was hard to deny.     
  
“Prop me up.  I’m sick of lying here.”  
  
“No.  You need to stay still, Jo.”   He took hold of the frayed tail of his dress shirt and ripped another long strip off, and tied it as another layer around the makeshift bandages already there.  Every movement was agony, but Jo grit her teeth and let him work.      
  
“Why did you follow me?  Why did you have to follow me?”  he hissed, and Jo wondered if he were speaking to her, or to himself.  
  
“I wasn’t going to let you chase after an armed suspect alone,”  she said.    
  
Henry was an idiot, chasing a murderer into a condemned building.  Maybe it had been the wild gunshot the suspect had sent their way, or something as simple as the slammed door the guy had thrown, but it had brought the wall down on them.  They were trapped by a pile of rubble, and dammit, it was Henry’s fault.  He had no sense, no understanding of his own mortality.  It was only fate that sent the room down around their ears instead of Henry getting himself shot.  If there was any justice in the world, the suspect had died in the collapse.  He’d been ahead of them, and it was impossible to know.    
  
But she wasn’t about to tell Henry any of it.  He knew already, and they were both trapped in here without a single bar of cell reception.  No need to make him feel worse.  After all, he’d probably be the one who’d have to live with whatever went down today.  Jo wasn’t so sure about herself.  
  
Once again, Henry started to claw at the immovable rubble.  Same as before, nothing significant moved.  He grunted in frustration, and prowled the edges of the destroyed room.    
  
“Henry, sit down.  You’ll wear yourself out,”  she murmured.  She was getting sleepy.  “You need to save your energy.”  
  
Henry knelt next to her head, and with gentle hands checked her temperature, her pulse, the dilation of her pupils.  She’d been knocked hard by the collapsing cement, and knew she’d probably bleed out here long before anyone found them.  Whatever he saw, he smiled encouragingly—or tried.  His worry was poorly concealed.  
  
“I have to get you help.”  He stroked her hair back from her face.  “I can’t delay any longer.”  
  
She snorted.  If that was a joke meant to make her feel better, it was way off the mark.  He was unfailing, as always, at saying just the wrong thing.    
  
“Okay then, off you go.  Stop procrastinating.”    
  
“I am going to do something, and I need you to trust me.”  He wore that same sad, worried smile.  He took her hand and squeezed it tight.  “And I promise it will be fine.”  
  
She frowned.  “What is it?”  
  
Henry pulled his hand from hers, and then there was a tug at her side.  He sat back, and had her gun in his hand.  He flipped the safety off.    
  
“Hey!  Henry—“  She reached for him, managing to brush against his knee before he shuffled back further from her.  She tried to roll towards him, but her leg was agonizing, and she cringed.  “Henry, what are you doing?” she managed.  
  
Henry licked his lips, balancing the gun in his grip.  
  
“If I could think of any other way, I swear to you, I wouldn’t do this.” His hand was shaking, and the gun trembled.  “But I need to get you to a hospital, and if I wait any longer you are going to bleed to death.  I am not going to let you die because I—because—”  He cut himself off, closed his eyes and took a deep breath.  
  
She managed to get to her side, panting from the effort. He was scaring her, his off-kilter rambling not quite making sense.    
  
“Henry, give me back my gun.”  
  
“Jo.”  He opened his eyes, having calmed himself again.  “I need you to remember what I’m saying now.  It will make sense later.”  He took another deep breath.  “Now, I am going to shoot myself in the head. I’d prefer you didn’t watch.”  
  
He said it with such terrifying, matter-of-fact calm that she took a moment to process what he meant.    
  
Jesus Christ, he was having some kind of psychotic break.  
  
“No—no!  Henry, give me the gun.”  She reached for him again, but Henry stood up and walked away to the corner of the room.  
  
“Listen to me.  I am going to die, and my body is going to disappear.” He sounded apologetic more than anything.  “But I won’t be dead—not permanently, anyway.  I’ll have help here in an hour, maybe two.  I promise you.”  
  
“For god’s sake Henry, that is not how death works!  It’s not a goddamned video game!”  Jo felt dizzy, and her arms gave out on her.  She didn’t have the strength to get to him, and she was going to spook him if she kept shouting.  Suicide negotiation training came to her in small snippets, and she gulped for air, trying to calm herself, make her voice steady and soft.  “Oh my god, okay, okay—let’s talk, Henry.  I know it seems hopeless right, now, but—“  
  
“Please, trust me.”  He lifted the gun to his head.  
  
“Henry!  Henry, please!  We can talk about this, I—“  
  
He squeezed his eyes shut.    
  
“I’m so sorry, Jo.  Try not to move.  You’ll bleed faster if you do.  And I promise, I’ll be back for you as soon as I can.  Please don’t watch.”  His words were frantic and tight, rushed out in a single breath.  
  
“No, no, Henry!  No—“  
  
He turned around to face the corner of the room, turning his back to Jo.  The retort of the gun was deafening in the small space, and blotted out Jo’s cry.  Henry’s body collapsed to the floor, the gun clattering as it hit the cement, falling from his useless fingers. Jo looked away, gagging at the gory sight.  Oh god, Henry—  
  
She looked up again, and the blank corner stared back at her.  She sucked in a breath and held it.  
  
Filthy cement, dust, bits of rubble.  No blood and bones and brain sprayed on the wall.  No Henry.  
  
She propped herself up as well as she could, adrenaline and fear damping the pain, looking wildly around the room.  Nothing.  She was alone.  No indication Henry had ever been here.  Nothing but the torn strips of blue dress shirt tied tight around her wound.  
  
The wooziness hit her as the adrenaline peaked and faded, and she collapsed back on the cement.  She stared at the corner, at her gun lying three feet from the wall where Henry had dropped it as he fell.  Where she was sure he’d fallen.  The place where there was nothing.    
  
By the time she lost consciousness about fifteen minutes later, she’d almost convinced herself she’d imagined Henry being there in the first place.  Delusions from loss of blood and pain.    
  
But those makeshift tourniquets on her leg—they refused to go away and let her embrace the comforting lie.  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

He was holding her hand just like he used to.    
  
Jo would lie on the couch watching TV, and Sean would put his fingers through hers, pull her hand to him and cup it with the other.  Snug and warm, comforting.  
  
But he couldn’t be here, because he was dead, but she was sure he was holding her hand, the blurry dark head bent over at her side, and she tried to wade her way through the blanket of thick cotton that wanted to hold her in the dark, because she had to see him.  Sean.  She tried to call out to him before he slipped away, the way he always slipped away from her.  
  
She clawed out of the dark, kicking and fighting and constantly losing as much ground as she gained, not sure if she was awake or dreaming, already losing sight of him, until he was gone altogether.  
  
She squeezed the hand that held hers, and Henry squeezed back.  
  
“Rest, Jo.”  
  
She was dreaming.  Henry was dead, as dead as Sean, and the only thing she held in her hand was memories, and those hurt.  She’d much rather be trapped down in the murky dark—she’d already learned how much better that was than reality.  
  
Sleep was better.  Much, much better than what was waiting for her when she woke up.  She gave up the struggle and let herself slip back down again into morphine-driven sleep.  
  
The dream would be long forgotten by the time she woke, and that was for the best.

 

***

 

Opening her eyes felt like an ordeal Jo wasn’t prepared to tackle.  Even so, she blinked gummy lids and squinted against the light, hoping to orient herself.  White walls, pale yellow curtains.  Hospital, then.  
  
Twice in one year; not exactly a score card to be proud of.  What was it this time?  They must have had her on some hefty painkillers—her mind was fuzzy and slow to kick into gear.  
  
“Hey, Jo.  You awake?”  
  
Someone was holding her hand.  It felt familiar, and she couldn’t figure out why.  She turned her head.     
  
Hanson, standing at her bedside.  He was lit up with relief, smiling down at her.  
  
“Hey there.  Wondered when you were going to grace us with your presence.”  
  
“Hey,” she croaked, her throat dry and scratchy.  “Getting tired of waking up in hospitals.”  
  
“Getting tired of seeing you in them.”  Hanson glanced around at the little room, as though he could change reality with the force of his disapproval.  He squeezed her hand again as he returned his attention to her.  “So how about you stop having buildings fall on you, huh?”  
  
“Buildings?”  She was still too sleepy to sort out her thoughts in any orderly fashion, and she tried to put his words into context.  
  
“Do you remember what happened?”  
  
She sorted through the cloudy fog, trying to pick out the most recent memories.  Buildings, buildings—there it was.  A jumble of events hit her—a chase, the collapsing cement knocking her down, and Henry—  
  
“Henry,” she gasped.  
  
Henry.  The gun.  She tried to sit up, and then grit her teeth when a shot of pain went up her leg.  
  
“Hey, hey, relax.  He’s fine,”  Hanson said, catching her by the shoulders and helping her ease back down on the bed. “You’re damned lucky he was smart enough not to go in after you.  He called the fire department when the building came down on you.  They managed to get you out.”  
  
“No, he’s…“  She trailed off as Hanson’s words trickled down through her panic.  She took Hanson by the wrist, trying to make sure she hadn’t misunderstood.  “Henry called?”  
  
“Yeah, he did.  What, did you think he was going to leave you in there?”    
  
“No—no, but…” 

Henry had been there with her.  Henry had taken her gun.  Henry was dead.  
  
“Jo?  You okay?”  
  
Hanson patted the hand she had closed around his wrist, and she realized she had a tight hold on him.  She released him, trying to fight off the swell of confusing messages her mind was throwing up at her.  
  
“I don’t know.  I thought—I don’t know.”  
  
“Hey, relax.  It’s okay.”  
  
He caught and squeezed her hand quickly before withdrawing to pour her a glass of water from the pitcher on the side table.  At Hanson’s encouragement she took the cup and sipped water from the bent straw.    
  
Henry’s pale and gaunt expression flashed across her mental vision, just as he’d looked at her before he had turned away and put a bullet through his brain.  
  
_“Henry!  Henry, please!  We can talk about this, I—“_  
  
_“Please don’t watch.”_  
  
_“No, no, Henry!  No—“_  
  
_The flash.  Bloody spray.  His body, falling—_  
  
She fumbled the water and nearly dropped it—would have dropped it if Hanson hadn’t been hovering and made a quick save—when her mind finally staggered through the flash and the bang and she could breathe again.  Jo let Hanson take the cup from her hands, and she covered her face, trying to bring herself back together, ignoring Hanson’s concerned questions and just trying to breathe, because she remembered what came after. 

Henry’s body wasn’t there.  Poof.  Gone.  She’d been alone in that room, bleeding out, waiting to die.    
  
Henry, or no Henry.  Which one was real?  She had no idea.  Jo’s stomach cramped and her mouth watered.  She put her hands over her mouth and hoped she wasn’t going to be sick.  
   
There was either something really wrong with her, or really wrong with the world.  Right now she was favouring a strong knock on the head, or maybe it was the morphine talking.  
  
_"I assure you, that’s the morphine talking."_  
  
Those had been Henry’s words, standing next to her at her bedside, with a smile like a suspect smugly lying to her face when she’d said she thought he fell off the roof the night she was shot.  She knew he’d been lying about something, but not what.  Surely—no.    
  
It didn’t make sense.  Nothing made sense.  
  
Hanson put a hand on her shoulder.  
  
“Jo, do you need me to get a doctor?”  
  
She shook her head and wiped her eyes, trying to pull herself back out of her head.  
  
“No, I’m just weepy from the drugs.  Still kind of messed up.”  
  
“You sure?”  
  
She wasn’t sure at all, but she needed time to sit and think, not a doctor trying to push more drugs into her, so she looked at him and tried to smile.  
  
“No, no.  Sit, it’s fine. I’m tired, that’s all.”  
  
Hanson nodded, but he was still hovering like he was ready to catch her if she fell out of bed.  She waved him off, and reluctantly he pulled the visitor’s chair over next to the bed and sat down.  He watched her in concern.     
  
“Let me know if you need to rest, okay?”  
  
“No, I’m glad you’re here.”  
  
Hanson was steady as a rock, and with all the turmoil going on in her head, it was nice to have him close by and know that at least something in the world was still the same.  The tense set of his mouth softened, and he leaned on the edge of the bed and crossed his arms.    
  
“I’m glad you’re okay.”  
  
Now that she was paying attention, she could see that Hanson was exhausted.  The man worried too much, same as always.  He’d hovered like an older brother the whole time after her husband died, and of course he’d go and get like this now.  She reached over and poked him, narrowing her eyes.  
  
“Oh, stop it, I’m fine.  I’ll be out of here in no time.”  
  
“I don’t doubt it.”  He tapped a thumb against his arm for a moment, then sighed heavily.  “Jo, you gotta stop taking risks like this.”  
  
“ _Me_ taking risks?  Henry was—”  She stopped short.  
  
Henry had been outside the building, supposedly calling for her rescue.  Or, Henry was dead.  She fell into confused silence, doubting her own memories.  
  
“Yeah, I know Henry was there, and I’m grateful for that, at least.  I get that Henry’s good at investigation stuff, but...”  He licked his lips, steeling himself for what he was about to say, before he looked at Jo.  “But he’s not a cop.  I’m your partner, Jo.  I’m supposed to have your back.  I can’t do that if you don’t let me know what’s going on.”  
  
Hanson looked away from her, struggling with not letting his frustration get the best of him.  She patted his arm.  She had been running off too much lately, picking up lax habits.    
  
“Hey.  I’m sorry.”  
  
“Yeah.”  Hanson sucked in a breath and leaned back in the chair, rubbing his knees.  “Well, anyway.  Reece said that whenever you’re feeling up for it, she can send someone down to get your official statement so they can get someone started on the report.  Henry had the info about the money laundering trail, so—”  
  
Jo’s thoughts drifted again, twisting around that single moment—his apologies, her scream, the shot.  No Henry.  Hanson said he was alive and well, but she needed to see it.    
  
“Where is Henry?” she blurted.  
  
Hanson stopped in the middle of his sentence, taken aback by her interruption. He frowned, looking confused at her unexpected focus.

“I dunno—to be honest, I’m surprised he’s not here.  He’s been haunting this place for the last day.  I bet he’ll be back soon.”  
  
She rolled her head to look at the door, wondering if she’d really believe he was alive until she saw him.    
  
After a bit, Hanson drifted back to the case follow-up, talking mostly to fill the silence.  She appreciated it, though her fatigue and all the painkillers left her drifting in and out of the conversation, more listening to his voice than taking in what he was saying.  Hanson stayed to visit a while longer, but eventually had to excuse himself and get back to work.    
  
As he was leaving a nurse came in to check on her, and Jo managed to choke down the hospital lunch she brought in.  By the end, the pain was starting to make her eyes water and they gave her another dose of morphine.    
  
She spent the rest of the day dozing off and on, but despite Hanson’s speculation, Henry never showed.  No matter how many times she reminded herself of what Hanson said, she couldn’t shake the belief that he was dead.

 

***

 

_Cause of death:    gunshot wound_  
_Entry point:          right temporal bone_  
_Exit point:            left temporal bone (presumed)_

Henry slowed to a stop in his data entry, pausing over ‘pain level’ and trying to determine how best to calculate it on his scale.  He put the pen down.  Pain wasn’t so easily determined in this case.  It had been fast for a gunshot wound—they could drag on for a long time.  A head shot was efficient; through the brain, unconscious in seconds, death soon after.  
  
To put the bullet in his own brain—that had been harder.  To do it while Jo begged him not to, to hear the last residuals of her scream past the cannon-like gunshot as everything faded, near impossible.  The physical pain seemed paltry in comparison.    
  
He’d panicked, having left it far too long to take his time and finesse the situation.  He could have tried to make himself clearer, and ease through the transition better.  Instead he’d left it to the last and let pure adrenaline carry him over the difficult cusp of working up the impetus to kill himself.    
  
He’d committed suicide once before, in the depths of a despair so deep his only recourse was to hope that just this once, it might end.  When all it gained him was a mouthful of salty North Sea water and a naked march through a tiny fishing village in hunt of clothing and pity, he learned to cope in other ways.  Or not cope, in the case of those lost decades.  A time well left in the distant past.    
  
He’d never felt the temptation again, and even knowing he had no other options in this case had not made it easier to overcome the natural instinct to live.  He looked back to his notes.    
  
_Pain level:_    
  
Incalculable.    
  
“You’re going to burn a hole through the paper if you keep staring at it like that.”  
  
Henry startled and swivelled around in his chair to find Abe standing on the laboratory stairs, looking down at him.    
  
“Sorry, I was lost in thought.”  
  
“Yeah, I noticed.  I called you twice.”  Abe came down the stairs and over to the desk.  He crossed his arms.  “So how’s Jo doing?”  
  
He grimaced, reluctant to give Abe any opening to discuss this with him. Of course, that would make Abe all the more eager to give him a difficult time with it.  He could be as persistently relentless as his mother had been.    
  
“She’s recovering.”    
  
“Oh, that’s very enlightening, thank you.”  Abe sat on the edge of his desk.  “How’s she coping with the you-know-what?”  
  
“My immortality?  I don’t know.  I didn’t have the opportunity to speak with her.  She was still unconscious when I left.”  
  
Henry picked up the fountain pen and scooted his chair back in towards his desk, not interested in facing Abe’s coming disapproval.  Sure enough, Abe frowned down at him.    
  
“So you park yourself at her bedside for a day and a half—and then you leave before she wakes up?”  
  
“Abe, please.  I don’t wish to discuss it.“    
  
This was a discussion he was tired of having with himself and berating himself over, he did not need the additional external voice to join in the chorus.  Abe pointedly ignored him.  
  
“She’s gotta be up and around by now.  You’ve been hiding down here all day, why don’t you go check on her?”  
  
He’d very nearly done so half a dozen times already, gone so far as put his coat and scarf on and stand at the foot of the stairs.  Each time he’d diverted to pacing his laboratory, or back to his notes, or some other delay.  
  
He was afraid.  Absolute, dry-mouthed terror.  He took a slow breath through his nose and tried not to let it get the best of him again.  The cold chill of it had driven him from Jo’s bedside when, in twilight consciousness, she’d mumbled with certainty that he was dead, flexing her weak grip on his hand.  
  
“She’s going to need some time to clear her head.  It would be unkind to have this conversation when she’s just woken.  Never mind the physical exhaustion, the medication in her system alone will have a debilitating effect on her cognitive—“  
  
“Unkind?”  Abe jumped on his defensive excuses.  “Unkind is letting the poor girl think you’re dead!”  
  
“She knows I’m not dead!”  Henry snapped, waving his hands as he spoke.  “Hanson came when I was there.  I was forced to spin a whole tale of my phone call to 911 from the sidelines.  He will likely have mentioned it, and any confusion she has on the matter will be chalked down to her post-surgery state.”  
  
The grilling Hanson had given him in the hallway had been lengthy, and Henry’s story grew and grew out of necessity at each of his detailed questions, spiralling out of control.  He’d had to repeat it to himself over and again on the way home just to make sure he kept the details of his lie straight.  
  
Sooner or later he’d have to go over it with Jo.  With luck, she wouldn’t fight him too hard on the lies.  At this point she would be protecting her own perceived sanity as well as Henry’s secret; she was clever, and would quickly see they had little choice.  
  
She would resent him for it, forcing her to sign her name to lies in her official report, making her look the fool for chasing after a dangerous man into a dangerous situation, without backup.  In short, throwing his own foolish mistakes onto her good name.  
  
Above all that, the bigger issue remained:  she’d seen him die.  What would she do when she saw him alive?  
  
Unable to sit any longer, Henry stood, pacing the length of the laboratory.   Fear, doubt, and guilt were a heady combination.  He ran out of floor and wheeled around.  He knew he was working himself up, but his thoughts had been racing in circles and it didn’t take much for them to boil over.  
  
“I shouldn’t have gone to the hospital at all—if Hanson and Reece hadn’t seen me there, I could have—“  
  
“You could have what?  Left for good, let her think she was crazy for the rest of her life?”  Abe scowled at him, and stabbed a finger towards the stairs.  “Go talk to her.  Go explain.”  
  
Henry rubbed his hands over his face as he walked.    
  
“Abe, it will be a disaster.  She won’t understand.”  
  
“Abigail did.”  
  
That stopped him in his tracks.  He rounded on Abe, scrambling for a response.    
  
“That’s not fair, that was completely different.  And besides, she—“  he stopped himself.    
  
He didn’t want to say it out loud.  It was hard enough thinking it.  
  
Abigail had loved him.  It had made _everything_ different, and even then it had been so difficult, and a stupid risk.  He didn’t fool himself to think he was lucky enough to experience that kind of acceptance twice in a lifetime, even one as long as his.  He shook his head, firmly shutting the door on that particular memory.  
  
“It was different,” he said again.  
  
Abe stood and came over to him, taking him by the shoulders.  
  
“Come on.  Give her a chance.  She deserves it, after all of this.”  He squeezed Henry’s muscles, trying to shake the tension from it, and Henry reluctantly let his shoulders drop.  “It won’t be that bad.  She already knows, she just needs to understand.”  
  
“The smart thing would be to leave.  We still could.”  He knew he was already on the downhill slide into losing this argument.  
  
“If you really thought that, we’d already be gone,”  Abe said.  He released Henry and looked around obviously at the laboratory, in its standard state of cluttered order.  “And yet here we are.  So quit stalling, already.”  
  
“Yes, fine, your point is well taken, thank you.”  He sighed, and shoved his hands in his pockets.  “I’ll talk to her tomorrow.”  
  
Abe grunted, looking as though he’d object and chase Henry out the door instantly, but instead nodded.  Perhaps he was willing to pick his battles on this, and Henry’s promise of soon was better than nothing.    
  
“Great,”  Abe said.  “Now, the reason I came down here was to tell you dinner is ready.  You gonna join me?”  
  
Henry nodded.  “I’ll be right up.”    
  
Abe headed up the stairs, and Henry turned off the little light on his desk, catching a last look at Abigail’s portrait on his desk.  With Abigail, it hadn’t been simple, but somehow, it had been easier than this.

 

***

 

_**Poland, 1945** _  
  
_There shouldn’t have been any raids—it was the end of the war, and half the people in the Allied forces in the camp were with the medical corps.  It should have been quiet tonight, and they shouldn’t have been attacking medical personnel._  
  
_Henry and Abigail, out for what should have been a pleasant stroll in the fading evening light, sprinted for shelter in the bombed-out wreck of a building, as the ominous whistling sound drew closer, faint over the hum of plane engines, until it was shrieking in their ears.  Behind them another bomb fell, half a mile distant.  It exploded much closer to the hospital where innocent patients, children even, including a tiny baby that had captured his heart, cowered in the basement bomb shelter.  Or so he hoped—there was no time for them to make the safety of the building, and were forced to run for what cover they could find.   He spared himself a look over his shoulder to see the hospital still standing._  
  
_The whistling grew into a scream._  
  
_“Get down!”  Henry cried._  
  
_He shoved Abigail behind a pile of rubble that had once been a structural wall, and threw himself over top of her.  The explosion was deafening, and he felt the shrapnel spear through him a second later.  Abigail’s breathing was harsh and frantic as she rolled him off her, scrambling to get at the wound._  
  
_“Hold on, Henry.  It will be alright,” she was saying, trying not to sound frightened for his sake, but her hands were shaking._  
  
_He groaned as she pressed against the gushing wound.  It was useless.  Both of them had seen enough men die like this to know it was useless.  No, he couldn’t leave her, couldn’t leave this life. Not yet.  He reached for her, catching hold of her uniform jacket._  
  
_“I’ll come back,” he murmured._  
  
_“You’re not going anywhere, Henry Morgan.  You are not!”  Abigail shouted at him, face streaked with dirt and eyes bright.  “ I love you, and you are not going to die.”_  
  
_He loved her too, more than he should, more than was safe, or reasonable.  He tried to get the words out, but it was too late._  
  
_As he dragged himself from the frigid river a mere mile distant from the camp, the decision to return wasn’t even a question in his mind.  There was too much at stake._  
  
_Hours later, he finally made it back to the camp. Covered in mud and sporting a bloody uniform stolen from a dead British soldier, he searched for her, asking everyone he could find if they’d seen her._  
  
_When he burst through the door to the medical supply hut, his chest heaving, Abigail whirled around to face him.  Seeing him, she froze._  
  
_And then, before he could speak, she screamed._

 

***

 

Hospital visiting hours started at 8:00am, and promptly upon the hour, Henry arrived at the nurses’ station on Jo’s floor.  He signed in and made the long walk down the hall to her room.  He was exhausted from a mostly sleepless night; by dawn he’d given up on sleep, and rose to prepare himself for this inevitable march.  
  
Outside her room, a step from the open door, he balked.  He put a hand on the wall to anchor himself, trying to push away the instinct to turn and run.    
  
Deep breath.  One, two.    
  
This was Jo, who had shown him nothing but kindness and fair treatment in the time he’d known her. Part of him wanted to believe in her, to put his faith in her, but people changed when the issue of immortality came into play.    
  
His hand curled into a fist against the wall.  He wanted to run so, _so_ badly.  
  
A rustle and thump drew his attention.  He looked up, coming face-to-face with Jo edging her way through the doorway with painful, shuffling movements, propped up on crutches and with a hospital porter hovering at her side.    
  
“Henry?”  
  
She wobbled and dropped one of the crutches, and the porter grabbed her, keeping her from going down to the floor.  She cried out in pain.  
  
Henry took a step back, the sound of her cry like another bullet to his brain.  


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This fic takes place pre-Skinny Dipper (1x11). Henry's public indecency charges are still hidden away in his file, and Henry hasn't heard from Adam in a while.
> 
> Once again, [pipsqueak119](http://archiveofourown.org/users/pipsqueak119/pseuds/pipsqueak119), [WashingWater](http://archiveofourown.org/users/WashingWater/pseuds/WashingWater), and [SpaceCadet72](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Spacecadet72/pseuds/Spacecadet72) continue to be the beta squad that make all this stuff make sense. Thank you, guys.

The porter struggled to get Jo back to her centre of gravity and keep her from ripping at the tubes connecting her to the wheeled stand at her side. 

“Nurse!  Can I get a nurse at 402!”  he called out down the hall, and then gave Henry a desperate look.  “Sir, do you think you might—“  
  
Henry shook himself out of his stunned state.  
  
“Yes—yes, right.”  
  
He rushed to take Jo’s other arm, hooking it over his shoulder.  Jo was focused on the pain, sweating and pale, and had turned inward as she tried to manage it.  She did little other than grunt and do her best to help them with shuffling steps as they got her back to the hospital bed.  The porter lifted her legs in with care not to disturb the healing wound on her leg.  A nurse hustled into the room, shouldering Henry aside to get to Jo, and Henry retreated to give her space to work.    
  
Henry stood at the foot of her bed watching the flurry of activity.  He wanted to do something, but there was nothing to do but stay out of the way and wait.  After a quick consult, the nurse gave Jo a hefty dose of morphine to cut the pain.    
  
“There we go, honey,” the nurse said, arranging Jo’s blanket so it covered her properly.  “The meds will help you get some rest.  And let’s leave the adventures until tomorrow, okay?”  
  
Jo nodded, brow furrowed and eyes still closed, and the nurse turned to Henry.  
  
“Keep it short if you can.”  
  
“I will,” Henry answered.  
  
The porter and nurse departed, leaving just the two of them.  He bounced on his toes and straightened up.  He was here, and might as well comport himself with some dignity.  He wished his heart would stop racing.  
  
“Hello, Jo.  Sorry for startling you.”  
  
Jo cracked an eye, and then closed it again.  She sucked in a deep breath, and then opened her eyes fully, rolling her head so she could look directly at him down the length of the bed.  Henry tried not to fidget.  
  
Henry wasn’t skilled at the art of living without regrets.  He had a laundry list of them that he could trot out without even the slightest amount of effort; but soaring its way to the top of that list was choosing his own discomfort over Jo’s peace of mind.  He should have spoken to her earlier, not hidden away wondering how best to tackle it.  
  
“Hanson said you called the fire department.”  
  
He nodded.  He wasn’t sure if he should leap in, or let her take the roundabout route to the knowledge she was looking for.    
  
“I did.  Or, rather, I called Abe, and he did.”  
  
“You don’t own a cell phone.”  
  
“That’s true.  I borrowed one.”  
  
He’d pleaded with a couple on the river path while shivering and wet, wrapped in a dirty blanket he’d found on the beach. He claimed a bachelor’s party prank gone wrong, a need to phone his soon-to-be bride to tell her he was still alive, and that he would be there for the wedding.  He was rather proud of that story; he’d spotted the engagement ring and the obvious affection of the two, and that plus his worry for Jo had inspired him to a very convincing performance.  They’d been rather sympathetic, all told.    
  
“You borrowed a phone, and called to tell Abe I was stuck in a building so that _he_ could phone 911?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
It had been easier than trying to negotiate a long emergency call on a borrowed cell phone while others looked on.  
  
Jo was eyeing Henry like she would a suspect, and he could see her moving the pieces in her mind, picking apart his story and planning her strategy.  He clasped his hands together in front of him, battling nerves to keep his voice level.    
  
“I’m sorry I didn’t speak to you sooner.”  
  
She didn’t respond, eyes still unblinking and now a little unfocused.  He shifted and cleared his throat, and when she didn’t move at all he took a step around the side of the bed.  
  
“Detective?”  
  
She nodded slowly.  “Yeah, just…yeah.”  
  
In that moment, he knew he could lie to her.  Jo _wanted_ him to lie to her. She was waiting for Henry to give her anything she could latch onto that made sense with her world view.    He could make anything up right now, and she’d willingly help him gaslight her into ignoring her own instincts and the evidence of her own eyes.    
  
Jo was smart, and over time the lie wouldn’t stick.  Once healthy and rested, he had no doubt in his mind that she’d come at him again with stronger resolve to get the proper answers.  But right now, in this moment, he could lie.  If he sold a good enough story, he might even be able to dissuade her later.  
  
If he were a better man, it wouldn’t be such a temptation.  
  
She shifted in the bed, and he saw the resulting cringe of pain.  It was enough to spur him out of his selfish thoughts.  She was in pain and exhausted, with the medication creeping over her and soon to knock her out.  Henry crossed over and pulled the visitor’s chair next to the bedside.  He glanced at the open door and the hospital hallway beyond, conscious of their dubious privacy.  This was not the place he wanted to have such a discussion, but he owed her something.  
  
Something moved in the corner of his vision, and he glanced back at her.  Her hand was hovering in the air, and when he didn’t pull back, she reached out and touched the side of his head.  
  
He watched her face, brows pulled together in concentration as she examined him, feeling along the side of his skull.  He shivered as her fingers grazed along his scalp, a little uncomfortable with the quiet intimacy of her touch.  It had been a long while since he’d allowed anyone such liberties, and longer since that person had mattered to him.  He sat still and waited out her examination.  
  
It took a long while before she dropped her hand back to the bed.  Jo closed her eyes and took a deep breath.    
  
“Sorry. I don’t know what I was expecting.”  
  
“At a guess, I’d say a hole?”    
  
The glib words fell without much forethought—he never could resist a smart remark—and he winced in apology when Jo turned her face away from him.  
  
“Just say this is a joke.  One giant, really bad practical joke, and that none of it is real.”  
  
“I can’t.  I’m sorry, Jo.”  
  
“Of course not.  That would be too easy.”  
  
The pain, fatigue, and stress in her voice were all too apparent.  She needed to sleep and let the medication do its job.  Henry stood, preparing to excuse himself.  They could tackle this later when she was better rested.  
  
“Sit,” Jo said.  
  
He focused on Jo, who was now staring up at him with a look that said she could read his thoughts, and by her grim look she would have none of it.  No further delays, then.  He sat back down.    
  
Looking at her was difficult, so he glanced around the hospital room instead, swallowing down his nerves.  He gestured to the decor, which was...well, it wasn’t _bad_ , exactly.  Nondescript was probably the best he could say about it.  A bland abstract painting on the wall completed the look, some mass-produced bit of 1990’s art that probably adorned every room on this floor.  He couldn’t help but curl his lip at that one—he’d been so grateful when teal stopped dominating the decorative landscape.    
  
“At least you have a relatively soothing environment for your recovery.  Pastels are admittedly not to my tastes, but a private room will afford you better—“  
  
“Cut the crap, Henry,” she snapped.    
  
“Yes.  Sorry.”  He folded his hands to his lap and tapped his foot, trying to stop himself from leaping from the chair and pacing the floor.   “So.”  
  
Tired of his stalling, Jo made a frustrated noise.    
  
“So, what happened in there?”  There was a pleading tone to her words.  She stopped herself, then started again with a steadier voice.  “Henry, I swear I thought I saw you put my gun to your head and shoot yourself.  And you seem to think I saw it too, so—so what?  What happened?  You have to tell me, because I’m worried I might be going crazy, and I have no idea what to think.  I’ve got nothing.”  
  
She sniffed and looked away from him, surreptitiously wiping away a tear that had escaped.  The hard edge that had been keeping her together so far was wavering, no doubt thanks to the powerful drugs starting to take their effect.  
  
Jo didn’t deserve having all this dumped upon her when she was in this condition, as his explanation was likely to make things much worse before they were better.  Perhaps he could ease her into it.  When they were trapped, he’d delayed so long he hadn’t had the chance, but maybe he could be gentle now;  take her back to firmer ground before tearing it out from beneath her.  
  
“I’ll explain as best I can.”  He looked again to the open door.  First things first.  “One moment.”    
  
He walked over to close the door to the room, and returned to sit in the chair, crossing his legs and aiming for a relaxed pose.   She kept careful watch of him as he moved, like he might disappear on her at any moment.  
  
She had good reason.  
  
“Well,” he said slowly,  “why don’t we start from the beginning, from what you do know.  When the suspect bolted from the store and led us on a chase.”  
  
He thought she might argue with him, but she swallowed and nodded.    
  
“Okay, yeah.”  
  
He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward in his chair, resting his elbows on his knees and lacing his hands together.    
  
“I was ahead of you. I thought I could catch him, but he ran into the building before I could do so.”  
  
“You followed him.  I told you not to, but you ran in after him anyway.”  
  
Henry nodded.  His mouth was so dry it was hard to speak, but he didn’t dare break to get himself water.  If he stopped now, he wouldn’t be able to continue.  She was right, he’d pursued the man recklessly, only thinking about catching him, and not the fact that Jo would, of course, follow him into a deadly situation.  He’d almost gotten her killed.  
  
“I followed him down the stairs to the basement level—”  
  
“I saw you at the bottom of the stairs,” she added.  “You didn’t know which way he’d gone.”  
  
“You told me to come back.”  
  
“And you didn’t listen,” she said with a hint of wry humour.  “You ran off, of course. I followed you.”    
  
Henry grimaced.  On top of everything else, this was an incredibly uncomfortable retrospective of the series of his egotistical missteps that had led to this situation.    
  
“Yes.”  
  
“I finally caught up with you,” she continued.  “The suspect turned to take a shot, and you pushed me out of the way, and—“  She frowned and closed her eyes, searching for memories.  “—And he ran, made it out into a corridor and slammed the door on us—“  
  
“And the floor above collapsed on us.”  
  
“We were trapped in that room.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Together.”  
  
“Yes.” Henry gripped his hands together to keep himself rooted, forcing himself to keep his eyes on Jo.  “I was in that room with you.  I dressed your leg wound as best I could.  I tried to find a way out.  I tried everything I could think of.”  
  
“You took my gun,” she whispered.  “You took my gun and said you didn’t want me to watch.”  
  
He nodded, smiling faintly, and echoed her earlier words.    
  
“And you didn’t listen.”  
  
“Henry.”  It sounded like a sob, and she bit her lip.  She was trying hard to follow the events through with him to their natural conclusions, but he could see the fear in her eyes.  “It doesn’t make any sense.”  
  
“No, it doesn’t.  But that’s how it is.  I die and my body disappears.  I reappear in water nearby—in this case, the East River.  Alive.”  
  
“You—what?  The East River?”  Her forehead wrinkled, and she shook her head as though she’d misheard him.  “What?”  
  
“If I die here in New York, it always seems to be the East River.”    
  
“Die here—how many places have you died, Henry?”  She looked away from him, a confused expression on her face.  “God, did I seriously just ask that?”    
  
She looked back at him, a little lost, and Henry found his resolve for all this honesty fading.  It was such a long story, and he wasn’t entirely sure how much of it he wanted to share right now.  
  
“A few,” he hedged.    
  
“A few?”  She gaped at him.  “ _A few_?”  
  
“Yes, a few.”    
  
He rose from the chair, his nervous energy finally getting the best of him.  He walked over to the windows, looking out over the street below, watching people scurrying about their business.  Average, normal life.  What he would give to put things back as they had been.  Satisfying work, colleagues he both enjoyed and admired, and a partnership with Jo that he found fulfilled him in ways he hadn’t realized he needed.    
  
He’d had protection in privacy—his reality separate from this life he’d built.  It was coming apart, and he could see the end of it approaching.  
  
However, it was what it was, and he had to see this through.  He steeled himself and turned to her, pulling himself back into line.  He tipped his head in a small, formal nod.  
  
“I apologize.  This is not the easiest thing for me to discuss.”  
  
“I can see why.  It sounds insane.”  
  
Shades of unpleasant memories snuck up on him and send a cold chill up his spine.  He tried to hold onto the present and not lose himself in the past.    
  
“Yes, I—I suppose it does.”  He struggled to smile and dismiss the sudden terror, but his paranoia prodded him to ask.  “You won’t tell anyone, will you?”  
  
She gave him a look of disbelief, and then she laughed, short and bitter.    
  
“Who am I gonna tell, Henry?  They’d lock me up if I told anybody about this.  No one would believe me.”    
  
He drummed his fingers on the side of his leg.  She was more right than she knew.  More than ever, he felt the need to validate her experience and ground it in reality—a twisted reality, but real nonetheless.  He needed to give her something.  
  
“Abe would,” he said.  
  
She blinked at him slowly.  “What?”  
  
“Abe would believe you.  He knows.  About me, I mean.”    
  
She looked at him for a long time, and then blinked again, her eyes staying closed a fraction longer.  She was going under the effects of the medication.    
  
“He knows you, um—come back?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
He was about to say more, to offer her the whole story of Abe, but she blinked again and this time her eyes were shut a whole second before they flickered open again.  She must have realized she was fading, as she lifted her head and shook it to try and stay alert, squinting at him.  He sighed.  He wasn’t sure if he was relieved or frustrated to let it lie at this point.  
  
“We can finish this later.  You should rest.”  
  
“No,” she murmured.  “I need to talk to you.”  
  
Henry crossed over to her and pulled the extra blanket from the foot of the bed, spreading it over her.  “You need to sleep and recover.”  
  
She nodded and didn’t argue—by far the best indication of the powerful drugs in her system—and let him finish tucking the blanket.  She watched him from beneath heavy eyelids.    
  
“What are you, Henry?” she asked, her voice a quiet murmur as she drifted off.  
  
In seconds, she was out in a heavy sedated slumber.  
  
“I wish I knew,” he said quietly.  
  
He sat watching Jo sleep for at least twenty minutes, wondering what to do.  He didn’t want to leave, but he didn’t want to ambush her upon waking with even more to process.  He wasn’t sure he was ready to continue this either.  
  
In the end, he scrounged up a piece of paper and a pen from the nurses’ station and left her a note; a promise of a conversation whenever she felt stronger and recovered, time and space, if she needed it—generic platitudes that would mean little to anyone else but her.    
  
He put the letter on the bedside table and left.

  
  
***  
  
  
  
**_Poland, 1945_**  
  
_Henry had already tried to leave once with the last bit of resolve he had.  He’d taken the coward’s way out and left a letter; penned while Abigail slept, full of vague and generic excuses and apologies, but signed with all his love._  
  
_That resolve had long since faded.  It vanished in a kiss on a street corner, his suitcase in his hand, as he tried and failed to make it to the train station.  He’d never mustered an ounce since._  
  
_It seemed like years ago, but it was only months since he’d tumbled into bed with her, before he’d realized what she meant to him.  She was supposed to have been a bit of respite from the horror, a remembrance of stunning beauty in the middle of this desolation—nothing more.  With each passing day he’d fooled himself with greater conviction that he could stay.  He’d put off tomorrow with bloody-minded self-delusion until he almost believed it could be real, that he could have a normal life with a normal love._  
  
_Here and now, inside the temporary tin walls of the medical supply hut, Abigail’s scream was piercing, and it died in a choked breath when he moved towards her.  She backed up so fast the metal shelf at her back rattled with the force of her impact, and she stared at him in horror._  
  
_“Abigail?”  He took another step, unable to stop.  He needed to hold her and make this better.  He had to fix it somehow.  “Abigail, it’s me.”_  
  
_“No, please—”  She covered her mouth, eyes large with terror._  
  
_“No!  No, I’m immortal, I can’t die—Abigail, no, it’s all right.  Please, I’m sorry—“_  
  
_This was all going wrong, but he couldn’t stop the flood of words, advancing on her with hands held out to her, without any thought but to hold her and calm her fear.  She cringed from him, and when he touched her, she started to cry.  He drew back as though burned, but after a horrible frozen second she threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck and hugging him, sobbing._  
  
_“Henry!  I don’t understand!  You died, you died, and you vanished,” she babbled through shuddering breath. “What is going on?”_  
  
_“It’s alright, darling, please don’t cry—please, I’ll try and explain.”_  
  
_He held her so tight he could barely breathe.  This was the most idiotic thing he’d ever done, but he couldn’t leave her._  
  
_She pulled back and took his face in her hands, her own red and blotchy._  
  
_“Henry, I don’t understand.  How is this possible?”_  
  
_He shook his head and suddenly had no words.  Reality intruded with horrible force.  This was a mistake, in every conceivable way, but he couldn’t have forced himself to any other action but to come back to her.  Tears burning, he pulled her to him again, burying his head in her hair, which was thick with dust from the rubble._  
  
_“I’m sorry,”  Henry pleaded.  “I’m sorry, I couldn’t leave you.”_  
  
_Abigail held him tight, and he heard her whisper in his ear, “Henry, I’m frightened.”_

  
  
***  
  
  
  
Henry pushed through the doors of the morgue and made his way to his office.  Tired as he was, he was grateful that the day was just started and he could fill his hours with work; interesting and challenging problems if he was lucky, and suitably mind-numbing drudgery if he wasn’t.  For a while longer he could hide here and pretend that nothing had changed.  
  
“Good morning, Doctor Morgan,”  Lucas called out as he strode past.    
  
“Good morning, Lucas.”    
  
He walked on, waiting for Lucas’ next sally; the summary of the days’ case files, and who was to be on his slab for the rest of the day, but Lucas said no more.  
  
Henry petered to a stop before reaching his office and swivelled back towards him.  Lucas had his feet up on the bench and was leaning back in his chair, contemplating the computer screen in front of him.  
  
“Lucas?  Who do we have in today?”  
  
“Nobody.”  
  
“What?”    
  
Henry walked back over to him, and sure enough, not a single file was in Lucas’ inbox.  The computer had a brightly coloured video game running on it, and when Lucas realized Henry was close enough to glimpse the screen, he scrambled upright, dropping his feet to the ground and closing the window, shooting Henry a guilty look.  
  
“Yeah, I know—weird, huh?  There’s nobody.  No body—hah.” He snorted to himself, and grinned.  “Get it, no body…”  Seeing Henry thoroughly unamused by the joke, he stuttered to a halt.  “Right, sorry.  Yeah, anyway, it’s all quiet.  I guess everyone’s waiting until tomorrow to die.”  
  
In three years at this job, this had never happened.  Not a single time.  Of all days it could happen, it would have to be today.  A day of paperwork and administrative drudgery it was.  
  
“Fine.  We can catch up on our reports.”  
  
“Done.  I got in early, and you weren’t here, so I grabbed ‘em and filled in what needed doing.  There were only three, so those are ready to go.”  Lucas gestured to the departmental mail envelope waiting in the basket for the mail cart.  “There is one that still needs your signature though, so it’s on your desk.”  
  
Henry frowned at Lucas in consternation.  Normally he’d be overjoyed at Lucas taking some initiative and getting things done, but today…  He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to reset his expectations.  No one dying should have been worthy of celebration, not dismay.  
  
Lucas cleared his throat conspicuously, and Henry dropped his hand.  
  
“Yes, what is it?”    
  
Henry didn’t mean it, but there was a definite impatient edge to his voice.  Perhaps the lack of sleep was catching up with him earlier in the day than he’d hoped.  
  
“I, uh,”  Lucas stuttered.  Now that he had Henry’s attention, he didn’t seem to know what to do with it.  “I just wondered if—if you’re okay?”  
  
“Okay?” he repeated, rolling the nondescript word over in his mouth.  
  
“Yeah, you seem a bit, you know, off.”  
  
Henry straightened, pulling himself up to his full height.  He wasn’t offended, exactly, but it rankled that even Lucas should notice his thoughts were occupied to such an extent.  He pressed his lips together, unduly irritated.  
  
“Lucas—” he began, but Lucas anticipated him.  
  
“No, no, I know, it’s none of my business,”  Lucas said, and his shoulders slumped.  “Just—you know, if you need anything.”  
  
Lucas grabbed a random file from his desk and opened it, staring into it, and both of them knew he was only pretending interest in it.  Henry rocked back on his heels, taking a moment to rethink their exchange.  The inquiry had been sincere, and not intentionally prying or invasive.  Mere concern for his wellbeing.    
  
It was Lucas’ blithe attempts at pushy humour and his childish self-absorption that Henry quickly tired of, never his sincerity.  When Lucas relaxed and stopped trying so hard, he could be rather thoughtful. In those moments—in this moment—Henry felt a fondness for him that he typically tried to let go unacknowledged. Henry’s life was delicate enough to balance; the last thing he needed was more emotional attachment.  The last two days had provided ample evidence of the folly that brought.  
  
Still, it was the height of uncharitableness to rebuff a kindness offered, even if it was an unnecessary one.  His irritation fading in the face of Lucas’ embarrassment, Henry shoved aside his pride.  
  
“Apologies.  Thank you.”  Henry met Lucas’ eye when Lucas looked up from the file.  “Truly.  I am fine, though.”  
  
Lucas gaped for a moment and then nodded, and then continued to do so excessively, his head bobbling about like it had come off its mooring.  
  
“Yeah, okay.  Good.  I mean, I’m glad.”  
  
Henry despaired at Lucas’ tripping over his own verbal feet.  Someday Lucas would manage to conduct himself without devolving into an overeager puppy, but apparently today was not the day.  
  
With heavy resignation, he retreated to his office, hanging up his outer wear and exchanging it for his lab coat.  A quick flip through the papers left on his desk by the evening shift revealed nothing of interest, until he pulled out the manila folder on the bottom of the stack.  He flipped it open.    
  
The file Lucas had referred to; a report from Jo from their case last week, forwarded to him before the accident, awaiting his final signature to close out the case.  He leaned an elbow on the desk.  He had no desire to think on her right now, but it was inescapable.  He had precious little else to distract him.  
  
Jo’s fear was the worst part of it.  Her fear as she watched him prepare to die, and then her fear as she tried to put the impossibility of her memories into context.  But she knew now, at least.  He’d done the worst of it and told her what she needed to know, hopefully granting her some peace of mind.    
  
He’d looked another person in the eye and told them the truth.  His muscles still turned to liquid knowing that she’d be guardian of this secret until she died.  He would spend her lifetime knowing that someone else knew, really knew.  
  
She wasn’t the only one, though.  Adam—whoever he was, Adam knew as well.  Henry’s carefully crafted privacy, the little shield he’d erected around his life with Abe, was full of punctures and leaking secrets like a sieve.  He let out a shaky breath, trying to tuck away those concerns.  He was learning to live with the shadow Adam cast over him.    
  
Jo knowing was different.  
  
He saw Jo on a weekly basis, worked close at her side, had broken bread with her over his own table.  She was as near to a friend as he’d had in ages; more than a colleague, certainly.  That he’d have to look her in the eye and know she could see through him, would know him—it was unbearably uncomfortable, a type of intimacy he hadn’t experienced with an outsider in a very long time.  Abigail had been the last outsider he’d let in; and, beyond all reason, she’d been willing to step into the circus ring of his life, when it should have driven her away.    
  
Since Abigail’s departure, Abe had been his sole point of honesty in this world.  Abe had grown naturally into the knowledge, had been young enough to nod and accept Henry’s immortality with the open-mindedness that people were blessed with as children, before the world taught them to adhere to the rigid rules of perception.  There’d been a simplicity to his acceptance that had stunned Henry at the time, and now it was something Henry treasured.  
  
And now, here was Jo, standing in no man’s land with his secret in her hands.  
  
But she only knew part of it.  The most important part, arguably, he’d not yet told her.  She had no idea how old he was, and that the entire life story he’d given her was a paper cutout.  How would she trust him again if she knew how much he’d lied?  Where would she draw the line at what she could accept from him?  
  
Maybe she didn’t need to know.  He turned the possibility over in his mind.  
  
It was possible to leave the revelation at his inability to die.  No need to air his entire life story to her, no need to tell her his true age, that he would live on forever, looking exactly as he did today, as he had every day since his first death.  Why make it more difficult?  
  
He could live out his painstakingly crafted sham life here as planned, and spend as much time as he could at a job he enjoyed.  He’d put a lot of effort into securing this job, with falsified documents and years of laying enough paper trails to make Henry Morgan a real person again.    
  
Ostensibly he’d started here to study death, but it had grown into something fulfilling, and he was loath to leave it.  He filled a purpose here, and could bring comfort to those who sought answers for the deaths of their loved ones.  
  
His attention was drawn from his thoughts when, through his office’s glass wall, the main doors pushed open and Detective Hanson entered.  Henry made a quick visual sweep—jacket on, gun and badge on hip, but it was too late in the day to have just arrived at work.  On his way to a crime scene, then.  Here to invite Henry along.    
  
Thank god, someone had finally died.    
  
Henry scrambled up from his desk, throwing off his lab coat and grabbing up his bag, overcoat, and scarf.  He pushed through his office door, striding to meet Hanson as he shrugged on the coat.  
  
“Detective!  Good to see you.”  
  
“Hiya, Henry.”  He set his hands on his hips.  “I dunno if you’re busy—“  
  
“No!  No, not busy.”  He draped the scarf around his neck and tugged it into place, and smiled pleasantly at Hanson.  
  
Hanson looked a little taken aback by Henry’s eagerness.    
  
“Oh, yeah.  Well, I was wondering if you’ve got time to go to a crime scene.  We’ve got a fresh one, just got the call.  I know you normally do these things with Jo, but I thought, if you’ve got the time…”  
  
“Yes.”  He held up his bag.  “Ready!”  
  
“Yeah, you could look a little less excited about it,”  Hanson drawled, eyeing him.  
  
“Well, death waits for no man.”  
  
Except for him, whom death had no time for whatsoever.  He brushed aside the thought and followed Hanson out of the morgue.

 

  
***  
  
  
  
The day had stretched on, the crime scene being a delightful challenge, and Hanson had reluctantly let Henry tag along afterwards until with a frustrated _“Get out, for the love of god, get out,”_ he’d dumped Henry back at the CME offices, peeling out of the loading zone in his car and leaving Henry missing Jo and her willingness to at least listen to his observations without so obviously losing her patience.  
  
He’d only been trying to help.  _And_ he’d been right.    
  
Henry sighed, at least comforted by the fact that the body from the crime scene would meet him in the morgue, and he could occupy his time that way.  
  
By the time he arrived home it was long past dinner, which he rarely missed.  He was dead on his feet from running around the city with Hanson, an autopsy which had stretched on for a good long time, and left his lower back aching and stiff from leaning over the slab,  and then writing up his report until his vision blurred and he’d been forced to pack it in.  
  
Abe was at the top of the stairs as soon as Henry opened the door.  
  
“Everything okay?  How did it go?”  
  
Henry trudged up the stairs. He hung up his coat and scarf while Abe waited for his answer, practically vibrating with curiosity.  
  
“She is still recovering.”  
  
“Yeah yeah, I know that.  But what did she say?”  
  
Henry sighed, running a hand through his hair.  He was much too fatigued to launch into it now, and even the idea of getting into it made him want to close his eyes and go to sleep just to avoid the whole issue.  He gave Abe an apologetic look.  
  
“I’m sorry, I really don’t want to talk about it at the moment.”  
  
“That good, huh?”  
  
“Mm.”  
  
Abe looked him up and down a moment, then patted his arm and then turned to amble off towards the kitchen.    
  
“Come on, I kept a plate warm for you.”  
  
He sat at the table and picked at his food while Abe puttered around, idly chattering on about nothing in particular.  The mundanity of a normal night was soothing.  
  
Within these four walls, life remained the same.  
  
Change was a variable he had yet to solve;  either it was slow and gradual, barely noticed until he lifted his head and realized the world around him bore no resemblance to the one he was sure he lived in, or it was violent and quick, like a stunning blow.  
  
Either way, he did not always handle it well, and this was one of those times; watching the bits and pieces of his carefully constructed façade shift and sway was terrifying.  
  
Abe slid into the chair across from him, and Henry looked up from his plate.  Abe’s eyes were kind and gentle.  
  
“It’ll be okay.  Give it time.”  
  
Time; the thing he had too much of, and yet scrambled to catch hold of as the world whipped past him.    
  
Abe gave him a crooked smile, sure and steady as always, confident that life would work out for the best.  For a moment, Henry could see the young boy Abe had been; it was the same youthful faith shining through greying features, an innocent belief he’d shown in Henry from the beginning.  
  
Still his child, still the same unconditional love.  Many things had changed in the world, but not this.  Not Abe.    
  
Henry nodded, his mood finally lightening.  
  
“I’m sure it will.  Thank you.”  
  
“Eh,” Abe said, waving a hand dismissively.  “Now, eat.  I’m tired of watching you push that stuff around.  I slaved over that.”  
  
Henry chuckled and dug into the rice pilaff, which was indeed quite good, once he put his mind to his appetite and not his musings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For added reading, LoneTread wrote a [missing scene about Henry's borrowed cell phone call](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11135082/1/In-Case-of-Emergency) to Abe after he died!


	4. Chapter 4

_“Henry!  Henry, please!  We can talk about this, I—“_  
  
_“Please don’t watch.”_  
  
_“No, no, Henry!  No—“_  
  
_The flash.  Bloody spray.  His body, falling—_  
  
  
Jo woke from the familiar dream with a start.  As usual, it took her a moment to calm herself down, blinking away the panic to remember she didn’t need to grieve or be upset.  
  
Henry wasn’t dead.  
  
With a tired groan, Jo dragged herself out of bed, grabbed the cane from her bedside, and limped to the kitchen to get herself some coffee.  
  
As she drank it and gnawed on a piece of toast, she looked at the letter in Henry’s precise handwriting.  She’d left it on the kitchen table four days ago when she’d arrived home after her hospital release, and every morning looked at it again.  For a doctor, he had remarkable penmanship.  She’d always admired his tidy notes and appreciated their legibility.  A far cry from all the other autopsy reports over the years she’d had to decipher, with varying levels of success.  
  
And she wouldn’t have to worry about it, because his neat and tidy reports would continue to arrive on her desk, because _Henry wasn’t dead_.  
  
This was the new reality, and though she was logically coming to accept it, convincing her subconscious of the fact was slower going. Accepting this was a lot harder than it should be; even given how crazy it was, she had all the evidence in front of her, but none of it mattered—she still had to remind herself every time she thought of him.  
  
If there was one thing she’d learned about death, it was that it was final.  Brutally, unfairly final.  She’d had the truth of that underlined and emphasized over the past year, and she was struggling to believe there could be any exception.  
  
Sean never came back through that door, no matter how many times she dreamed it. There was no conversation walking her through her day, leading her to the conclusion that the phone call about Sean’s death had been a terrible mistake.  There was no discovery that he was alive and it had all been a misunderstanding, that his death was a mere clerical error that had now been rectified.    
  
For months her dreams had lied to her, and her first thought on waking was to remind herself that she wouldn’t see Sean again.  She wouldn’t roll over and see him with his eyes still closed, trying to ignore the alarm—after all these years, still not a morning person—no mid-day lunches in Chinatown, or texts to pick up milk on the way home.  She’d never walk in and see him with his feet up on the coffee table, surrounded by paperwork and apologetically telling her it’d be another late night.  
  
Now here she was in the opposite boat.  She woke with the certainty that Henry was dead, and had to remember it was a lie.  She could stroll into the morgue right now and he’d be there, probably up to his elbows in a body, ready to deliver his findings with his usual superior smile.  At any crime scene, he could turn up as her requested M.E., quick with his observations and assessments.  She could pick up the phone right now and call his office, and he’d answer, somehow know it was her, and say “Hello, Detective,” with exactly the same tone and cadence as always.    
  
She’d done that once already.  It had been an awkward and stilted conversation; she’d had nothing to say.  He’d been in the middle of an autopsy and Lucas had answered, holding it to Henry’s ear before she could tell him not to bother. Unable to speak freely, Henry had politely inquired after her health, dropping only a circumspect reference to ‘everything else,’  and hoping it was alright.  She’d said she was fine, and that she’d talk to him later.  Lucas had taken the phone back and she’d had to field his questions about what it was like to be inside a collapsing building before she managed to disentangle herself.  
  
She’d just wanted to hear Henry’s voice.  Not as satisfying an experience as she’d hoped.  
  
She took a long drink of coffee, gone tepid as she’d stared at the letter.  Henry wasn’t dead.  He _couldn’t_ die.  How was that even possible?  How did that happen to a person?  Was this something that happened randomly, people rising from the dead without explanation?  Or was it just Henry—and if so, what made him so special?  
  
The worst, darkest part of it, the little grain of thought she could barely stand to acknowledge, was the hope it gave her that maybe, just possibly, if Henry could come back, then maybe Sean could too.  
  
She swallowed down the lump in her throat and turned away from that fruitless thought, as she always did.  She’s spent more than enough time staring at Sean’s lifeless body in the morgue after they’d returned him from DC.  His death was an inescapable truth, and no fantastical fairy magic was changing that reality.  
  
Henry, though—Henry was a different story.  Apparently Henry got the second chances other people didn’t.    
  
She stood again, limping slowly to the counter with her dish, determined to get some things done today.  Now that she was starting to feel a little bit more like herself, she was going crazy with the enforced down-time.  She set herself a few goals of mundane housework, but the inanity of it left her thoughts at loose ends.  After too many mental repetitions of the events in the collapsed building, she grabbed up her cell phone and dialled.  
  
Hanson’s voice appeared on the other end of the line almost instantly.  
  
“Hiya Jo, what’s shaking?”  
  
“Hey there.  Just checking in, seeing how things are going.”  
  
“Bored out of your mind?”  
  
She grimaced, sinking onto the couch and propping up her leg.  Her purposeless phone call was a transparent ploy for distraction, and there wasn’t much she could do to deny it.    
  
“Yeah, you could say that.  I’m going to have to reorganize my cutlery drawer if I have to stay home much longer.”  
  
Hanson chuckled.  
  
“Well, I’m at a crime scene now. CSU is just finishing up their sweep.  It’s one hell of a construction accident.  You know where that new building is going up a few blocks north of South Cove Park? So the crane—oh my god, hang on.”  
  
“What?”  The alarm in Hanson’s voice made Jo sit up straight on the couch, and she winced as the quick jerk tweaked her injury.  “What’s wrong?”  
  
Muffled noises and shuffling came from the other end, as though the phone was being juggled, then Hanson’s voice, somewhat distant.  
  
“Henry—Henry, get down from there!”  
  
Jo pressed the phone tight to her ear, trying to make out the distorted noises, her heart pounding.  After a long second, with a loud scrape and a frustrated sigh, Hanson was back.  
  
“What’s going on? What’s happening?” Jo demanded.  
  
“Henry’s here, I requested him as M.E.  Crazy bastard’s crawling up the crane wreckage.  He’s gotta be thirty feet up!”  
  
“He’s _what_?”  
  
“I know, I know.  This guy—I know he’s good, but he is gonna get himself killed one of these days with all the stupid stunts he pulls.”  
  
The memory hit her like a physical blow—Henry’s pinched, pale face, the gun barrel pressed to his forehead, babbling apologies and nonsense until he turned away and the _gun_ —  
  
“Jo?  You still there?”  
  
“Yeah,” she said, fighting off the memory.  “Yeah, sorry.  Just surprised.”  
  
“Surprised,” Hanson snorted.  “That’s one word for it.  I don’t think I’m going to unclench until he gets back down here.  Oh—wait a sec.”  There was a another muffled flurry of noise from the other end, and then Hanson came back.  “I can’t believe this.  Henry says it’s sabotage.”  
  
Jo rolled her eyes.  That did sound like something he’d come up with.  It was as if he had a radar for landing all the weirdest crime scenes.  Or maybe if Henry went to more crime scenes, they’d all turn out to be weird.    
  
“Well, he’s probably right.”  
  
“Yeah, yeah, I know.  Goddamn it.  Crane sabotage though, are you kidding me?”  Hanson grumbled.  “Hurry up and get back here, I can’t handle all Henry’s nutso theories on my own, okay?”  
  
“Will do,” Jo said, trying to keep some levity in her voice.    
  
They said their goodbyes, and Jo stared at the cell phone in her hand.  Crimes scenes and investigations as usual, Henry and his same-old routine…  
  
It was all so normal.  
  
At every turn, there was evidence to reinforce her understanding that Henry was alive, and yet it felt so hollow, a shaky reality.  No matter what she saw, or heard, she was relentlessly torn between the knowledge he was alive and the heartsick belief that he was dead.  
  
She was stuck with a head full of circular thoughts she couldn’t share with anyone.  Jo shuffled off the couch, going to get herself a glass of water for her dry throat.  She paused mid-reach for her cane, sudden indecision striking her as she realized there was one person she could talk to, if she wanted more information than she already had.  
  
She grabbed her cane and levered herself off the couch. Time to get the hell out of this house.  She was sick of feeling like she was going crazy.

 

***

 

Henry climbed down the twisted wreckage and hopped off, dropping the last few feet.  The stress points where the metal had given way showed obvious signs of corrosion above and beyond the rest of the structure, implying tampering of some sort.  He pulled the small evidence bag from his pocket with the flakes of metal he’d pried off, heading for Detective Hanson to demonstrate the truth in his supposition.  Even from thirty feet up—and once Hanson had stopped shouting at him to get down, and listened to what Henry was saying—the doubtful look on his face had been blatantly obvious.  He trotted over to Hanson, who was still on his phone.    
  
“—and we’ll see you soon.  Sure thing, Jo.”  
  
Jo.  It was Jo on the phone.  He slowed, coming to a stop next to Hanson.  
  
He was frighteningly tempted to snatch the phone from Hanson’s ear and take over the conversation.  He hadn’t spoken to her since her unexpected call to the morgue, and then she’d been mostly silent.  He’d garnered precious little information on what was going through her head.  Though she owed him nothing, he’d hoped some form of acknowledgement would be forthcoming, even just a small indication that she’d accepted his story, even if she didn’t wish to discuss it again.  
  
“Henry, I swear you are gonna give me a heart attack.”  Hanson turned a tired glare on him as he ended the call.  
  
“What?”  Henry frowned, momentarily distracted by his thoughts on Jo.  Hanson gestured towards the collapsed crane in explanation, and Henry dismissed the overprotective concern with a wave of his hand.  “Oh, that.  I am a sure-footed climber, Detective.  You needn’t worry.”  He rattled the metal in the evidence bag.  “Now I managed to—“  
  
“Henry, that is bull.  That kind of thing is _exactly_ what causes accidents that lead to hospital stays.”  Hanson waggled his cell phone at Henry, referring to the recent caller.  
  
Henry straightened, letting his extended hand drop to his side.  His first instinct was to argue Hanson down, to point out his years of safe climbing experience—and yet, in a backwards way, Hanson was painfully, utterly right.  
  
His risk-taking caused Jo’s accident.  Not only that, it had backed him into a corner that forced him to choose between his secret and Jo’s life.  If he had shown a little more caution, he wouldn’t be in this mess.    
  
All of it down to Henry’s hubris.  He broke away from Hanson’s accusing gaze and looked back at the crane wreckage.  Damn.    
  
Like all those moments of inability to explain to Jo that it was _fine_ , that there was no need to worry about him, watching her stamp _reckless_ and _danger to himself_ over her opinion of him, he was stuck facing down Hanson’s disapproval without a single word to defend himself.  
  
“Hey, sorry, buddy.”    
  
Hanson clapped Henry on the shoulder, and Henry looked back at him, startled by the friendly gesture.    
  
“Pardon?”  
  
“I’m worried about her too.”  
  
“Oh.  Yes, well.  She will be fine, in time.”  
  
Henry fingered the plastic bag in his hand, trying to reorient his thoughts back to the case.  Focus on the work—not Jo, not his vulnerable position, not the standstill of waiting for her to be willing to speak with him again.  Before he could gather his thoughts up and continue the explanation on the corrosion, Hanson spoke again.  
  
“She sounds off.  I’ll be honest, I’m really worried about her.”  
  
Henry lifted his head, drawing a sharp breath, striving for a diffidence he didn’t feel.  
  
“I imagine a person is entitled to be a bit off after an experience such as hers.  Quite a shock.”  In more ways than one.  
  
“Yeah, but—I don’t know.  Just a feeling, I guess.”  Hanson jingled his keys in his pocket as he looked at the ground.  “She talk to you at all?”  
  
If only.  
  
“No, not really.”  
  
“Hm.”  
  
He realized that Hanson was inspecting him with uncharacteristic attention.  Henry shifted to a bland smile, thrusting the evidence bag towards him with a flourish to refocus his attention.  Taking the bait, Hanson reached out to pluck it from his hand.  
  
“So what’s this?”  
  
“Oxidized metal from the crane structure.  I’m certain that once we run some tests, we’ll find that the metal was purposefully weakened to the point of fatigue.  Once the arm was fully raised, the added weight was too much for the stress point, and down it came.”  
  
Hanson tapped the bag against the palm of his hand, giving Henry a dubious look and then shaking his head.  
  
“Crane sabotage.  Unbelievable.”  
  
Henry took his leave of Hanson and returned to the base of the wreckage and gathered his bag.  
  
At least if Hanson wasn’t effusive company, he was exhibiting a growing willingness to court Henry’s theories.  It gave him some small hope that if Jo chose not to work with him any further, Henry still had a shot at crime scene work.  Before Jo, not a single detective had been willing to work with him more than once.  He was fairly certain that requesting him as M.E. on a crime scene was a hazing ritual they put their new detectives through, though he hadn’t been able to explicitly confirm that theory.    
  
If he hadn’t met Jo, he wouldn’t have had this opportunity to discover how much he enjoyed fieldwork.  However, if he hadn’t met her, he wouldn’t have so much to lose, wouldn’t know what he was missing.  She was a tenuous thread tying him to a new life, and he was frightened of losing it.  
  
He was frightened of losing her.  
  
“Hey, Henry.”    
  
Henry looked up, startled to find that Hanson had snuck up on him while he was gathering up his equipment.  
  
“Yes, Detective?”  
  
“Look, I didn’t say it before, but I’m glad you were there.  Looking out for Jo, you know.”  
  
He had done nothing but cause them both grief.  He couldn’t accept Hanson’s words, not even in defense of his cover story.  
  
“I shouldn’t have let her go in there.  I should have stopped.  Stopped her, I mean.”  
  
“You saved her life.  That’s what counts.”  
  
Henry shoved in the last of his tools and clipped the bag closed.  He stood to face Hanson, eager to put the conversation behind them.  
  
“Thank you, Detective.”  
  
After packing up, they rode back to the precinct in Hanson’s vehicle and Henry watched the scenery slip past.  He’d give anything to know what Jo was thinking right now, but he’d made the decision to grant her this time without steamrolling through, however much he wanted to, and so he would have to bear it.  
  
He closed his eyes and tried to control the monster screaming in his chest for him to do something, _anything_.  This slow and tentative process was torture.  
  
Unable to sit still and silent any longer, he turned his attention to the only other distraction at hand.    
  
“You know, Detective, I had a thought about that corrosion…”  
  
He studiously ignored Hanson’s faint groan and continued on.

 

***

 

 _**Poland 1945** _  
  
_“Please, don’t be frightened, don’t be.  Shh, please, Abigail, shh…”_  
  
_A steady stream of pleading reassurance flooded out of him as he held her and rocked her, feeling her unsteady sobs and pounding heart against him. He kissed her head, her neck, her shoulder, whatever part he could reach without letting her go.  Her arms were so tight around his neck, he could barely breathe, but it was so much better than that horrifying moment when she’d reared back from him that he couldn’t even think to object._  
  
_She lifted her head and pulled back enough to look at him.  Her eyes were bloodshot and puffy.  His words dried up, and he waited and waited for her to say something.  Finally, she gave him a watery smile._  
  
_“I’m so glad you’re alive,” she whispered, and she teared up again.  “Thank god you’re alive.”_  
  
_She pulled him close, and he made a noise of desperate relief into her mouth as she kissed him.  Her fingers were clenched tight in his hair, hard enough to be painful, and he lifted her up off the ground in his embrace._  
  
_The way she kissed him, the shuddering gasps she made, made him want her with such intense fervour it frightened him.  He backed her into the tin wall of the supply hut, crushing her against it with his weight.  She clung to him, welcoming him._  
  
_He was blind; everything about her made him blind.  It was as though nothing else mattered when he had her.  He could never walk away.  Never.  Death was no great obstacle to overcome, but fear—yes, for her, he’d face down his fear and spit in its eye.  He’d do anything to stay with her._  
  
_“Henry,”  she nipped at his lips between deep kisses, as breathless as he was.  “Please.”  Her fingernails dug into the skin on the back of his neck._  
  
_He needed her.  He couldn’t live without her.  He couldn’t refuse her a bloody thing, he never would be able to.  He scrambled to push aside clothing without setting her down, impatient and clumsy.  She clung to his shoulders, legs tight around his hips, both of them frantic with explosive and impossible relief._  
  
_“Abigail—I love you,” he gasped, hands grasping to hold her tight, his face buried in the crook of her neck, “I love you.”_  
  
_She sighed his name, and he shuddered, unable to hold back any longer.  He loved her so much, and he was blind to everything else.  Nothing mattered but her—not tomorrow, not a distant and impossible future, nothing but here and now._   _His legs trembled and shook, and with a barely safe descent they ended up on the ground holding on to each other._

_Henry twisted to lean against the tin wall and Abigail shifted her body to curl up in his lap.  He pulled her to his chest and held her, both of them trying to catch their breath in the calm eye of the storm between them._  
  
_Abigail’s fingers drifted over his stolen uniform, finding a long gash in the side, then touching the badge bearing the British insignia sewn to the shoulder.  Whatever question was formulating, she didn’t ask.  Her fingers left it, travelling up to caress his face._  
  
_“I’m glad you’re alive,” she said, and pressed a light kiss to his lips.  “Whatever miracle this is, I’m so grateful for it.  But—but how?”_  
  
_He shook his head, at a loss for the proper words at first, and then shrugged.  He tried to smile._  
  
_“I’m immortal.  For whatever reason, death sees fit to throw me back rather than take me on.”_  
  
_“You’ve died before?”  Her eyebrows met in a furrowed line.  “My god, Henry—when?  What happened?”_  
  
_“It’s complicated.”_  
  
_Her look of concern hit him square in the chest.  He drew an unsteady breath, and tears threatened.  He was frightened to tell her more; he’d come this far, and she was still here with him, still in his arms, and yet there was more to say, and he had no idea whether or not she would stay with him if she knew it all.  In the long run, it was impossible; he could only maintain his delusional veil for so long, and it was rapidly falling away.  But he wasn’t ready to let her go yet—not even remotely.  The day would come eventually, but not today.  Please, not today._  
  
_“Henry?”  she prodded gently.  “Henry, tell me.”_  
  
_He nodded, blinking furiously to keep back tears, and ducked his chin, fixing on the bright brass pin on the lapel of her jacket._  
  
_“The first time I died was in 1814.”_  
  
_He could feel her stiffen as his words sunk in.  He closed his eyes and wondered if this was the last moment he would hold her like this._

 

***

 

Jo paid the cabbie and got out onto the sidewalk.  Her leg was aching; there was no doubt she was beyond what she should be doing, but determination was going to get her through.  Leaning heavily on the cane, she limped to the door of the antiques shop.  
  
She took a deep breath to collect herself and pushed open the door.  When the shop bell jingled, Abe looked up from behind the large desk and the small painting he was studying with a magnifying glass.  He pulled off his glasses and stood to meet her.  
  
“Hey, Detective Martinez!  Good to see you on your feet,” he said.    
  
“Yeah, well.  Getting there.”  She indicated the cane with a wry twist of her lips.  She’d be stuck with it for a while yet.  
  
“Here, come have a seat.”  Abe ushered her towards the back of the store and the desk, and she made her way with slow steps.  “Henry’s not here, he’s at work still.”  
  
“Yeah, I know.”  She lowered herself into the chair Abe pulled out for her.  “I came to talk to you, actually.”  
  
“Oh?”  He straightened, looking a little cautious, but he nodded.  “What can I do for you?”  
  
“I—um,”  she looked away from him, letting her gaze wander over the assorted bits and pieces of history littering the shop.  This suddenly seemed like a bad idea.  “Wow, I don’t really know how to say this…”    
  
Abe spared her the struggle.  
  
“You want to talk about Henry’s little condition?”  
  
His expression was kindly, and he said it without the slightest bit of surprise or hesitation.  There it was, another piece in this shaky house of cards she was building.  
  
“Yeah, if you’ve got a minute.”  
  
“No problem.  Let me lock up and we can head upstairs.  I’ll make you a coffee.”  
  
In minutes they were upstairs, and Jo blew across the top of the steaming cup.  Abe settled himself across the kitchen table from her, putting his own coffee down in front of him.    
  
“Been quite the time for you,” he said with a smile.  “You recovering okay?”  
  
“Good as can be expected.  Could be a lot worse.  I’m looking forward to getting back to work, though.”  
  
“Yeah.”  He tapped his fingers on the table. “So he finally told you.  I’m glad.  Hell of a thing, huh?”  
  
She swirled the coffee in her cup, then set it down.    
  
“Have you seen him die before?”    
  
She braced herself for Abe’s reaction.  She still expected him to not believe her, but he took her question in stride without any of the hesitation Jo still had over the surreal nature of the topic.  Abe pursed his lips in thought before he nodded.    
  
“Once or twice.”    
  
It sounded like he was downplaying it.  But why should that surprise her?  In less than a year of knowing Henry, how many times had he almost walked in front of a bullet, or thrown himself in the way of mortal danger?  She’d worried about him so much, and he’d always shrugged it off like her concern was unnecessary.  Now she had a reason for that.  
  
If Henry had always been so cavalier with his life, she could imagine it was more than just once or twice.    
  
“It’s never easy,” Abe continued.  “I mean, yeah, I know he’s coming back.  Doesn’t stop it from being real.  He really dies, every time.  Just because he comes back doesn’t mean he hasn’t experienced every single one of those deaths.”  He shifted in his chair uncomfortably.  “Doesn’t mean I don’t remember them.”  
  
“He shot himself.  Took the gun, put it to his head, and bang.”  She looked into her coffee.  
  
“Yeah, that’s not a pretty image.”  
  
“Nope.”  
  
“Hell of a way to find out.”  
  
“Yep.”    
  
She played with the handle of her cup.  This was one of the strangest conversations she’d ever had.  She looked up when Abe clapped his hands together, trying to lighten the mood with a friendly grin.    
  
“Well hey, at least you know now, right?  Hard part’s over.  I think Abigail’s the last person he told—they never told me the whole story, but from what I understand that wasn’t all that smooth either.”  
  
She cocked her head, curious at the mention of Henry’s ex.    
  
“He mentioned her, once.  Didn’t say much.”  
  
“Well, that’s Henry for you,” Abe said with a snort.  
  
“He told you, obviously, about his, um, condition.”    
  
She still couldn’t bring herself to put another word to it, or say it without stumbling over it.  Abe smiled at her reticence, chuckling.    
  
“Yeah, but I don’t think that one really counts.  He’d have had to tell me eventually.”  
  
“How did you find out?”  
  
“Oh, I think I got the talk when I was about fifteen.  You know, when you start noticing your parents are actual people, and not just Mom and Dad.  I thought Henry was going to pass out when I asked him how come he always looked the same in every picture.  God, you should have seen his face...  Jo?  Hey, Jo?  You okay there?”  
  
He put down his cup and leaned across the table in concern while Jo struggled to unstick her frozen mind.    
  
“Your—your _dad_?”  
  
Abe looked at her, bewildered.  “Yeah, Henry’s my—“  He stopped and straightened in his chair.  “Wait.  What exactly did he tell you?”  
  
“That he comes back after he dies…”  She trailed off, frantically counting years in her mind.  “He’s your—how old is he?”  
  
Abe tipped his head back and clapped a hand over his eyes.    
  
“Oh my god, that son of a bitch,” he muttered.  “I’m going to kill him, and he can drag his own naked butt home.”  He dropped his hands and waved them around as though erasing everything that had come before.  “Okay, here we go.  He comes back after he dies, yeah, but he doesn’t get older, either.  He stopped aging the first time he died.”  
  
“How old _is he_ , Abe?” she demanded again.  
  
He was silent for a long time, and then sighed.    
  
“About two hundred years older than you think he is.”  
  
Her brain refused to budge from the spot where it had stalled.    
  
“This is—“   She checked him again, searching for any sign he was joking with her.  She laughed, and then covered her mouth, trying to trap in the hysterical sound.  “No, this is totally insane.  This is—no.”  
  
Abe held up his hands peaceably.    
  
“Okay, now I know Henry’s made a hash of this, but—“  
  
“If this is some kind of joke, I don’t get it.”  She blinked back sudden tears.  Nothing made sense anymore.  Not Henry, not Abe, not her memories, nothing.  “You have to see that what you’re saying doesn’t make any sense, right?”  
  
To her own ears she sounded like she was begging him to take it back.  Maybe she was. Abe scratched his forehead, looking uncertain as to what to say or do.  Eventually he shuffled forward in his seat and reached out to pat her hand resting on the table.    
  
“Yeah, I know, kid.  Y’know, five years ago—hell, even a year ago—if something like this had happened, Henry’d be in another country setting up a new life by now, and you wouldn’t have heard a whisper from him ever again.  But he’s stuck around.  Mostly so you don’t have to spend the rest of your life thinking your crazy friend shot himself and vanished in a puff of smoke.”  Abe paused and glanced up, considering his words.  “Well, he _did_ do that.  But you know what I mean.  He’s trying.  Henry’s never really trusted a lot of people—and he’s had his reasons, believe me—so this isn’t easy for him either.”    
  
She bit her lip, staring down at the table as Abe spoke.  Abe withdrew his hand and stood to cross the room, returning quickly.  A tissue box slid into her field of vision. With a small smile of thanks, she took one.  Abe sat again as she dabbed at her eyes.  
  
“I’m sorry.  This is all—it’s getting to me I guess,” she said, clearing her throat.  
  
“Knowing Henry isn’t the easiest thing in the world.”  
  
She tried to imagine Abe’s life with a father who’d looked the same since the day he was born.  To look at your dad and see a man half your age.  
  
“He’s really your dad?”  
  
“Yeah.  Adopted me as a baby.  Come on, I’ll show you.”  
  
Abe stood and beckoned her to follow, and Jo grabbed her cane and hobbled after him. He led the way back into the hall towards the bedrooms.  They passed one open door through which Jo glimpsed a tidy bed and a night stand with a stack of books.  Henry’s room.  She looked away, feeling like she was spying, and hurried on after Abe.  
  
“Henry keeps most of ‘em locked up downstairs, but I’ve got a few that are mine.  For pretty obvious reasons, Henry doesn’t like pictures too much.”  Abe was rooting in the top drawer of his dresser, and then pulled out a dark brown tie box from the back of the drawer.  “Here it is.”  
  
Jo came to stand next to him as Abe pried the top and bottom apart, setting the pieces on the top of the dresser.  Inside, a few old pictures.  Abe picked them up and leafed through, then singled one out, putting the rest back.  
  
“Here.  Me and Dad, 1954.”  
  
Abe pushed it into her hands.  It was black and white, a snapshot from a park somewhere.  A small Abe was riding piggy-back, his little face beaming over his father’s shoulder with childish delight.  Over _Henry’s_ shoulder.    
  
That was Henry’s face, clean-shaven, hair carefully parted.  His features glowed, an open and happy smile lighting him up like a sunbeam.  He looked as though someone had just called his name, like he’d turned to the camera in the middle of laughter.  
  
“He looks happy,” she blurted.  
  
All the remarkable stories that this one little picture told, all these secrets, and that was what filtered to the top of her thoughts first.  Abe leaned an elbow on the high dresser and propped the side of his head against his fist.    
  
“Yeah.  He was.  We were.  They were good parents.”  
  
“Him and Abigail?”  
  
Abe nodded, and Jo carefully set the picture back in the box along with the others.  She leaned against the bedroom wall, shifting her weight off her injured leg.  
  
“It must be strange for you.  Him looking the same.”  
  
“Eh, it is what it is.  Harder for him, I think,” Abe said with a dismissive shrug.  He straightened up and put the lid back on the box.  “But I tell you, Henry’s one of the best people you’ll ever meet.  He might have his faults and come with all this bizarro stuff, but he’s a good guy.”  
  
“Yeah.  Yeah, he is.”    
  
Abe carefully tucked the box back in the drawer and rearranged socks and handkerchiefs to cover it.  A whole life hidden away by necessity, telling people his dad was his business partner’s son.  She couldn’t imagine it.  
  
“Any questions?” Abe asked her, sliding the drawer shut.  
  
“Only about a thousand,” she muttered, and Abe chuckled softly.  He’d been kind, and patient, and only now did she realize that, while not necessarily feeling better, she felt less alone.  By the look on Abe’s face, he was glad to have talked with her too.  She raised an eyebrow at him.  “But the first one is, what are you doing still living with your dad at your age?”  
  
She could see the smile that twitched at the corner of his mouth, but he held up a warning finger, keeping his expression serious.    
  
“Ah-ah, no.   _He_ lives with _me_ , in _my_ basement.  If anyone’s had trouble leaving the nest, it’s Henry.”  
  
She smiled, and Abe pulled her into a gruff hug and patted her on the back.  
  
“You’re doing good, kid.  Hang in there.”  
  
She hugged him back, her thoughts shuffling like cards as she tried to slot together everything she knew with everything she’d learned.  



	5. Chapter 5

When in doubt, do your research.  It had always been Jo’s motto, and with too many questions still lingering after she left Abe’s company, she fell back on this well-tested philosophy.  
  
The first time Jo looked up Henry’s file, when he’d been her prime suspect in the subway wreck—that felt like years ago, was it really only six months?—she’d searched records from 1997 onward, looking for any signs of criminal activity in his adult record.  He’d moved to New York four years prior, and there’d been nothing in homicide and she’d not expanded her search, moving on with obtaining the subpoena for the search warrant, and then his subsequent interrogation.  
  
As soon as she arrived at the precinct she set herself up in the records room.  She set her parameters back as far as the digital records stretched, casting the net wide, looking for any instance of a Henry Morgan appearing anywhere in anything they had.    
  
Oddly enough, there were three recent arrests for indecent exposure.  She hadn’t noticed those before, having stuck to searching for grievous crimes.  Sure enough, Henry’s face decorated each one, his mugshots haggard and chagrined.  She printed off the arrest sheets, hovering by the shared printer to snatch them off as they came out, not willing to take the risk of anyone else seeing them.    
  
As she returned to the access terminal, she studied the mugshots.  He was wet, his hair damp like he’d just crawled out of the shower.  No, like he’d just crawled out of the _river_.  Like he said he did whenever he died.  
  
What the hell was he doing naked on top of it?  And did this mean he’d died three times in the last four years?  
  
She shoved the sheets into a folder and continued her search, scrolling through hundreds of entries.  Most of them weren’t her Henry, given that Henry Morgan wasn’t a very distinctive name.  She wondered if he’d chosen it on purpose, some kind of generic alias, or if that was his real name.  How many times had he changed his name over the years, if he moved around as much as Abe implied he did?  
  
From 1977, a car accident report; car registered to Henry Morgan.  The report said it had been stolen, though they’d never found the thief, the wreck sitting empty when police arrived on the scene.  She printed it out, adding to the pile, with the suspicion that there’d been no theft at all.    
  
Around the early fifties, more records.  Another arrest for indecent exposure—one more death to add to the list.  One brief mention on a case file of a witness for a murder case, a Dr. Henry Morgan, a general practitioner, who had been involved in the event.  Yeah, that sounded like Henry.  She printed both of the reports off and added them to her growing file folder.    
  
Back and back, in approximately thirty year gaps that were starting to be predictable, she pulled up anything that looked remotely plausible.  At the point where she hit the turn of the twentieth century, when input digital records were patchy and her guesses were becoming more obscure and haphazard, and her leg was a constant, distracting ache, she closed the search windows.  
  
She stared at the file folder.  It was without a doubt the strangest thing she’d ever put together.  Surreal, yet undeniably tangible.  Her house of cards was shifting to brick and mortar, and it was becoming easier and easier to see the truth in all this instead of the impossibility, to fill in the gaps between all the bits of evidence and construct the big picture.    
  
She wanted to go home and think it over, but with only coffee and a long-distant breakfast fuelling her all day, she was light-headed and faint on top of everything else.  With the best and fastest option being the stack of takeout menus in her desk drawer, she grabbed her cane and started for the elevator.

 

***

 

As Jo was finishing her orange chicken and rice, Hanson came storming into the detective’s bullpen like a steam train about to run off the rails, tossing his jacket on the back of his chair and then himself into it.  He ran his hands over his face with a growl, and then straightened up to pull into his desk.  
  
“Good day?”  she asked.  
  
Hanson swivelled his chair towards her, startled.  
  
“Hey, what are you doing here?”  
  
“I, uh,” she gestured vaguely to her computer, which wasn’t even on, but fortunately the screen was facing away from Hanson.  “That 27th Street murder had a few loose ends that were bugging me.  Came in to clean up the file while I had some down time.”  
  
“That’s your idea of down time?” Hanson leaned back in his chair, looking exhausted.  “Jo, go home.  Watch a movie or something.  God knows that’s what I’d rather be doing right now.”  
  
“C’mon, Mike.  You know how it is,” she responded with a vague shrug.    
  
“Yeah, I do,” he said with a sigh.  Hanson leaned down and cracked a duffel bag under his desk and pulled out his customary plastic-wrapped sandwich, dropping it on the desk and unwrapping it.  “Well at least I’m going to get to eat my lunch with some quiet company.  Henry talked me into letting him come with me when I interviewed the site manager.  I tell you, that man—“  His attention was caught by something behind her, and he groaned.  “Oh no.”  
  
“Detective!  The winds last night were high enough that only the most confident climber would feel comfortable on a structure of that height.  Couple that with a knowledge of chemistry—“  
  
Henry’s strident, enthusiastic tones were rapidly approaching, accompanied by the brisk tattoo of footfalls as he charged in, making a beeline for Hanson’s desk.  As was his way, he was already into his lecture, authoritative finger waving in the air, having started the moment he was through the door and rattling on without a pause for breath.  
  
Mid-sentence, he came to a halt both verbally and physically, having to catch himself with an extra step when he spotted Jo.  
  
“Jo!  Ah, hello.”  
  
“Hi,” she said.  
  
Henry looked the same as always—dark suit, shirt and tie, cardigan—but with a tension through his whole body that held him rigid.  In an eye-blink, the carefree, happy smile from the picture superimposed itself, then faded away again to the Henry she knew.  For all they looked the same, they seemed like two different men.    
  
A person probably changed a lot in sixty years.    
  
Simple as that, the thought rolled through her head.  
  
“Are you well?  How is your leg?”  Henry asked, glancing at the cane balanced against her desk. “Surely it’s a little early for you to be planning a return to work?”  
  
Sixty years.  Older than that by nearly triple.    
  
“I’m tidying up some papers,” she said, finally remembering she should answer and not stare at him silently.  
  
“Ah.”  
  
He’d shot himself in the head, and was now standing in front of her desk asking if she was okay.  
  
For a moment his expression was that same poorly managed terror as when he told her he was sorry, that she’d understand everything later, as he held her gun to his forehead and said not to watch.  The image was never far from the surface of her thoughts, and she had to fight to keep it from swarming her again.  
  
“Okay, then,” Hanson drawled around a bite of his sandwich.  
  
Hanson was leaning back in his chair eyeing the two of them like he was watching a baseball match.  
  
After a last inscrutable look at her, Henry tore his attention away and clapped his hands together with forced enthusiasm, as though to shake the moment and resettle it into a different shape.  He rounded on Hanson with reenergized purpose.  
  
“Yes!  As I was saying, a knowledge of chemistry—“  
  
“Henry, seriously?” Hanson moaned, looking like a man robbed of a death row reprieve.  He took another determined bite of his sandwich and shooed Henry away with a wave of it after, dropping a bit of lettuce on his desk.  
  
Henry held up a hand, nodding a concession.  
  
“No, quite right, Detective Hanson, only a rudimentary understanding would be required, should the suspect have access to proper consultation on which chemicals would efficiently corrode the metal to such a degree, and how to correctly apply them.”  
  
Freed from Henry’s attention, Jo considered grabbing her coat and slipping out.  Not that she wanted to avoid him, but she wanted time to read and think before tackling anything more.  Her head was already too full of bizarre ideas like Henry voting for JFK and seeing the 1929 stock market crash first-hand.  
  
“No, _seriously_ , as in I am trying to eat my lunch here.”  
  
“And I am reviewing the facts as they stand while you do so.”  He took another deep breath as though to begin pontificating again, but stopped as Hanson wolfed down another bite, looking like he was trying to cram the sandwich in before Henry further ruined his chances at lunch.  Henry cleared his throat.  “An oft overlooked fact is that thorough chewing, while not only breaking down food and ensuring sufficient saliva for the digestive process, aids in triggering the efficiency of—“  
  
“Are you—you’ve got an opinion on the way I’m _eating_ now?”  Hanson swallowed down his mouthful, then slapped down his sandwich on the spread plastic wrap.  “That is it, you absolute—“  
  
“Problem?”  
  
Reece’s smooth voice cut through the argument, and all three of them looked up to find her with her arms folded, watching the scene from her office door.  
  
Hanson blew out a breath, sparing a glare for Henry before swivelling his chair around to face her.  
  
“Sorry, Lieu. Just going over the case details with Henry.”  
  
“I heard.”  She shifted her attention to Jo.  “Surprised to see you here.”  
  
Jo knew she was about to be called out on it, and wished she’d managed a stealthy getaway. She’d hoped to hide under the radar while Reece was on the weekly conference call with the city coordinator, but no such luck.  
  
“Yeah, well.  Had a few things I thought I could get done while I had some quiet time.  Going to take some work home.”  
  
“Hm,” was all she said, and strolled over to Jo’s desk.  “While you’re here, I’ve got a few questions about your statement on the accident, if you’re up for it.”  
  
Over Reece’s shoulder, Henry’s eyes were wide, his mouth half open, and Jo’s stomach dropped.  Whatever story Henry had fed them, she had no idea what it was.  She had the basic idea that she’d gone into the building alone, but other than that, nada.  When the sergeant had come to take her statement at the hospital, she’d pleaded a fuzzy head from the medication and made it general enough as to be useless.  
  
“Uh, yeah, sure.”  Not much choice now.  
  
“Perhaps I could sit in,” Henry said, cutting in smoothly and stepping up to Reece, edging his way just the smallest fraction between them.  “Fill in the external perspective, as it were.”  
  
Reece didn’t bother to look at him, fixed on Jo.  
  
“No, that’s not necessary, Doctor.  I have your statement, thank you.”  
  
“Ah, yes.”  Henry nodded and stepped back reluctantly.  “I’ll let you get on with it, then.”  
  
Jo stood slowly, and Henry’s worried eyes followed her as she limped towards Reece’s office.    
  
“Have a seat,”  Reece said, closing the door behind them.  
  
“Lieutenant, I—“  
  
“Detective,” Reece interrupted her smoothly.  “Let’s cut straight to it.  Do I have to put you on extended leave?”  
  
Jo stuttered for a moment, trying to sort out what she meant, watching Reece settle into her chair.  
  
“Uh—no, the doctor at the hospital said I was lucky.  Probably a week and I can be back on desk duty. I don’t think I need more than that.”  
  
“You ran into a condemned building on its last legs to chase a suspect.  You did not call for backup, even though you had no one on site other than a medical examiner, because you _left your partner behind_.”  Reece emphasized her words with a tap of her finger on the desktop, then folded her hands in front of her.  “Tell me how any of these are good judgement calls.”  
  
Jo bit her lip, trying to fight her rising frustration.  It wouldn’t do much to assuage Reece’s concern if she got upset right now.  So help her, if Henry got her put on extended medical leave, she was going to kill him.  
  
The thought startled her so much she almost laughed. She’d never once taken that expression literally.  He’d come back, and then she could yell at him some more.    
  
“Jo?  Do you want to tell me what’s going on?  I know the Bentley case was tough on you.  With the accident as well, if you need time, you can have it.”  Reece’s voice was gentle and soft.    
  
“I don’t,” Jo said quickly, trying to cover her loss of composure.  “I mean, the week will be fine.” She indicated the office door, towards Hanson outside, who was casting worried glances now and again at Reece’s office.  “I spoke with Hanson at the hospital.  We’ve agreed that I need to be in better communication with him.  It won’t happen again.”  
  
Reece silently assessed her.  Being under the lieutenant’s scrutiny always made her feel like a little kid in the principal’s office.  The unpleasant feeling of having disappointed her brought on the same relative childish guilt as well, and Jo held her breath, waiting, trying to ignore her throbbing leg.  
  
“Go home, Jo.  I don’t want to see you here for at least a week, understood?”  
  
Jo’s eyes flicked to the papers on the desk under Reece’s hands, but thought it best not to ask in case she ended up talking herself back into a corner.  She obviously wasn’t subtle about it, because Reece answered the unspoken question.  
  
“It can wait.  Get some rest.”  
  
“Okay.  Yeah, sure.  Thanks.”  
  
She left Reece’s office, breathing a sigh of relief at the reprieve.  Henry was pacing, having taken up a vigil at her desk.  At seeing her exit Reece’s office, he hurried over to meet her.  
  
“I’m sorry,” he said in a low voice.  “If I’d thought to—“  
  
“Not now,” she said, pain and stress making her abrupt.  
  
Henry fell silent immediately and nodded deferentially.  He took a step back as she passed him to get to her desk.  
  
She looked down at the folder she’d left sitting on her desktop.  They had a lot to talk about, and the lies Henry told to cover everything up weren’t even near the top of the list.  Jo leaned over to pick up the folder but moved too quickly; a bolt of fire went through her leg and her knee buckled. 

Henry dove for her and caught her before she went down, wrapping an arm around her back.  The pain was intense enough to make her break into a cold sweat, and she grimaced.  She was long past the point where she should have taken her pain medication, and it was still sitting on her kitchen counter at home, forgotten in her determination to talk to Abe.    
  
She took a careful step, and to her relief found the pain manageable, and Henry let go of her once she was stable.  Hanson was out of his chair too, nearby and looking like he wanted to dive in and pack her home over his shoulder, if necessary.    
  
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” she said, waving him away irritably.  Damn, she hated making a scene.  She just wanted to be at home.  
  
“Jo, we’ve got things under control here,”  Hanson said.  
  
“I got the lecture from Reece already.  I get the message, I’m going,” she said with a faint smile to take the sting from her words.  “I’ll see you later, Hanson.”  
  
“May I help you get a cab, Detective?”  Henry said, his tone calm and polite, but he was intently focused on her.  
  
He was at once the Henry she knew and a Henry she didn’t, and it was unsettling.  Maybe the sooner she put everything together, the better. She slid her hand over the file and picked it up, trying to quell her nerves and failing.  
  
“Sure.”  
  
They walked to the elevator in silence, Henry at her side and behind in case she lost her balance again, and she pushed the call button.  The wait was as awkward as anything she’d experienced, both of them aware of the full silence.  
  
They stepped into the elevator when it arrived, and Jo managed to wait until the doors slid closed before she spoke.  
  
“Henry—“  
  
“Did you know,” Henry interrupted smoothly, raising an eyebrow and then nodding up at the ceiling, “that even the elevators in the precinct are equipped with security equipment?  Should footage be required for evidence, it’s all available for review.”  His tone was conversational, as though he was sharing an interesting fact with her that he’d read in the newspaper this morning.  “Perhaps once we’re outside, instead?”  
  
She’d always seen him as guarded, but now she wondered how much of that was plain paranoia.  She pressed her lips together, not sure if she was irritated or sympathetic.  Her frustration bubbled up; the injury, the lecture from Reece, the sheer insanity of the last week, it was all down to Henry.  Without a further word, she handed him the folder.  
  
He took it after a moment’s hesitation and opened it.  The front sheet was his employment record, and he frowned at it, but as he flipped through the other pages his expression fell blank.    
  
The folder trembled before he clapped it closed, blinking rapidly and holding it to his chest, not looking at her.  His features swiftly ran through a series of complicated expressions she couldn’t read until he closed his eyes and dropped his head with a sigh.  
  
“You spoke with Abe.”  He opened his eyes and turned back towards her, looking tired and resigned.  
  
“Yeah.”  She worried at her cane handle with her thumb.  “This morning.”  
  
He wasn’t denying it.  He wasn’t even trying.  
  
“He told you, ah,” he glanced up at the ceiling and the security camera, then back. “He told you everything?”  
  
“I don’t know.  Seems like there’s more stuff every time I turn around.”  
  
His hand was still spread protectively over the folder.  
  
“It’s a long story.”  
  
“I’m starting to get that.”  
  
“ _Are_ you?”  He was partly cautious, partly something else she couldn’t read.  
  
Either way, she couldn’t hold his eye, because he seemed to want something from her and she was afraid to know what it was.  Before she had to answer, the elevator doors slid open, revealing the main floor.  She limped out as quickly as she could and Henry following her, in position once more to steady her if her leg gave out.  
  
“I must compliment you on your abilities; I hadn’t thought it possible to put something like this together, let alone so quickly.”  
  
She snuck a look at him, and he was looking down into the open folder again.  It was tilted towards him to ensure no one could even catch a glimpse.    
  
“If I hadn’t known what to look for, I don’t think I could have.”  She shrugged.  “I looked you up before when we first met and I didn’t turn up this stuff.  But at that point I expected your juvie record would be a little more recent.”  
  
He sighed softly, almost a laugh but not quite, and shut the folder again.  They’d reached the main doors to the street and he ducked ahead of her to push it open.  
  
“If I’d ever realized how pervasive and far-reaching technology would become, I might have given up the conceit of keeping my name.”  He sounded exhausted, voice a weary monotone that was completely unlike him.  “Amazing how quickly the world changes.”  
  
It was his real name.  She didn’t know why that made her so relieved. She needed to hear him say it out loud, though.   She paused in the doorway.  
  
“So you’ve always been Henry Morgan?”  
  
Henry glanced around.  He waited until a pair of business men in suits passed by on the sidewalk, then nodded.  
  
“Since the beginning.”  
  
“When was that exactly?” she asked.  She needed these words from his mouth directly, not hints and allusions and paperwork and second-hand stories.  She needed it from _him_.  
  
Henry looked around again before fixing her with a pleading look.  
  
“Jo, please. I am willing to answer your questions, but this is not the place.”  
  
She had to hear him say it.  
  
Ignoring the ache in her leg, she turned around and headed off to the secondary hallway, away from the main exit towards the morgue.  
  
“Detective?”  Henry was in the doorway still propping the door open, not following.  “Jo?”  
  
“Come on, none of those security cameras in your office.”  
  
“Jo, you need to go home and rest.  We can do this later.”  
  
“Five minutes, then I’m out of your hair.”  
  
He waffled, looking over his shoulder towards the street, then dropped the door and strode quickly to catch up with her, falling into step at her side.    
  
“Five minutes,” he agreed.  
  
  
***  
  
  
The plaster had been removed with all haste, and there was nothing he could do about it now.  Henry pushed open the morgue door and held it for Jo as she limped through, her jaw set against obvious pain.  Even so, it was quite clear she was going to say what she wanted to say before she left.  That he had no idea what it would be was enough to suck all the feeling from his limbs in horrible anticipation.  
  
“Hey there, Detective Martinez!  Wow, didn’t expect to see you up and about yet.  Glad you’re doing okay.”  
  
Lucas pulled an earbud out and called out his greeting as they passed.  
  
“Thanks, Lucas,” she grunted, and continued her single-minded, limping pace to Henry’s office.  
  
“Lucas, see we’re not disturbed, please,”  Henry said quietly.  
  
“Yeah, sure thing.”  Lucas looked after Jo curiously, but then shrugged.  “Whatever you need.”  
  
“Thank you.”  
  
He hurried after Jo, making it in time to grab the door to his office for her, and ushered her in.  She settled heavily into the guest seat, and he took the one next to her.  Much as he wished to hide behind his desk, there was not much point.  She’d rather effectively uncovered anything he had left to hide.    
  
He rested the damning file folder on his knee, unable to stop himself from opening it again, caught between fascination at seeing all this gathered together and the desire to destroy it as soon as possible.  Over a century of activity in this city.  A few things weren’t him, but for the most part she’d found him with unerring accuracy.  Henry ran a finger over an old copy of an arrest in 1903; only his name and a brief physical description that vaguely matched his, but she’d found it.    
  
Of course she’d found it; Jo had a dogged, thorough persistence that served her well in her job.  He should have expected her resourcefulness to bring this to light long before he was ready.  She was watching him, brow furrowed, as though looking for somewhere to start.    
  
“I’m sure I’ll never hear the end of this from Abe,” he joked with a mild tone, trying to dispel the quiet tension.    
  
“He was a little annoyed.”  She scanned Henry head to toe, as though she’d be able to see something different in him, now that she knew.  “He’s your son.”  
  
The bald statement sent another brief wave of fear over him before he purposefully dropped his tense shoulders and focused on Jo instead of the rabbit-swift pace of his heart thundering in his ears. She was testing the waters, waiting for him to either refute or agree with the statement.  He and Abe had so many elaborate cover stories between them that had changed through the years; Abe had been his brother, his friend, his uncle, his father, and finally his father’s business partner.  It had been a long, long time since he’d been able to voice the truth to anyone and lay claim to the fierce parental pride he felt for the man Abe had become.  
  
“Yes.”  His voice nearly failed him, but he straightened in his seat and steeled himself.  “He is my son.”  
  
“Okay, then.  That’s…yeah.”  Jo shook her head as though to clear it, taking a moment to process his answer.  Her eyes drifted from him to scan the office, touching on all the bits and bobs he’d collected over the years that adorned the shelves, and could almost see her cataloguing and reassessing their history and meaning.  She settled on the falsified diploma on his wall, and he could see the question coming.  
  
“Are you really a doctor?”  
  
“Yes.”    
  
“Not Guam, I’m guessing.”  
  
“London Medical College.  Class of 1804.”  
  
“Geez, Henry.”  
  
“Don’t worry, I keep up on medical advances.”  
  
His attempt at levity fell flat, and her resulting silence was long enough that he wondered if she’d come to the end and was going to leave now.  He would have said something if he could think of a single thing to say.  
  
“How many times have you died?”  
  
He sucked in a sharp breath.  It was the one question he didn’t want to answer.  The short answer was too many, and beyond that he didn’t like to think on it.  Dipping into that well of experience never led anywhere good.  He tried to keep his deaths clinical, documenting and studying their components rather than thinking on their significance, their impact.  He could count them up in his journals, add up the causes and sort them by level of trauma, pain, location of injury on the body, whatever he liked—the journals provided a distance that let him keep everything controlled.    
  
Except in the beginning, he hadn’t found the safety of his journals yet.  Henry groped for an answer and settled on honesty.  
  
“I’m afraid I can’t remember.  I didn’t keep track in the early days.  They were a little more—“  Henry paused, searched for a soft descriptor of those desperate, self-destructive times, “—frenetic.”    
  
Her silence was painful as she watched him, and he shifted under her inspection, until he couldn’t stop himself; the question tumbled out, too revealing of his insecurity, his fear.  
  
“Do you believe me?”  
  
She sighed and tipped her head to the side.  
  
“It’s a pretty elaborate setup for a scam.”  She looked reluctant to actually say the words out loud.  “Yeah.  I think so.”  
  
His throat seized, and he pressed his tongue to the back of his teeth as hard as he could to try and distract himself from the flurry of painful relief that blinded him without warning.  Jo’s expression softened and he had to look away from her, unable to look at her and still maintain his composure.  
  
She leaned forward in her seat and tugged the file from his hands, putting it on his desk, and then took his hand.  
  
“Can I ask when you last told anyone all this?”  
  
He tried to find his voice again.  
  
“On purpose?  It was in May, so… It’ll be seventy years this year.”  
  
She squeezed his hand.    
  
“That’s a long time.  No wonder you’re so bad at it.”  
  
He laughed weakly and she smiled, the same as ever when she was trying to goad a lighter mood out of him.  She looked down at their hands resting on his knee.  
  
“Abe said you usually leave.”  
  
“Yes.  Usually.”  
  
Twice, he hadn’t.  Once, it had been to his folly; still naive and trusting, still believing in Nora and her acceptance.  Once, it had led him to Abigail, and the best forty years of his life.  
  
Now, he had no idea where this was leading him.  He was a colleague to her, a friend at best; not a husband, not a lover.  And yet, he was tied to her.  
   
He was exhausted from days of knife-edge tension, and it was starting to bleed out in strange ways he couldn’t control, his thoughts a violent pendulum, smashing apart his equilibrium with each swing, and he gripped her hand like it might disappear from his grasp, fade away into an illusion of his own making.  
  
“Thank you,” he managed.  “I appreciate your faith.”  
  
“Half faith, half evidence.  I won’t pretend I’m all the way there.  This is all—ah, damn.”  She released his hand and leaned back in her chair, gritting her teeth and holding her leg.  “Look, I’m sorry, I have to get back.  I left my meds at home.”  
  
“Oh yes, of course.  I can still help you get a cab.”  Henry rose quickly and offered her his arm, helping her rise from the chair.  She kept her arm in the crook of his as they walked to the door.    
  
“Sounds good.”  She raised an eyebrow and gave him a mock-stern look and knocked him with her elbow.  “You know I’m going to be ticked if I get put on mandatory stress leave because of whatever you told them.”  
  
“Very understandable.  I’m afraid I reversed our roles rather neatly.  I’m sorry you’ve been unfairly handed the blame for my actions.”  
  
He reached for the door, and Jo stopped him before he could open it.    
  
“You saved my life.  Thank you.”  
  
He licked his lips, stalling for time to find an answer, and then nodded.  
  
“You’re welcome.”  
  
“And thank you for staying. For trusting me.”  
  
Before he could think of what he could possibly say to that, she patted his arm and pushed open the door herself.  He took a steadying breath before following her.  He wasn’t sure he remembered much from that point on until he put her in a cab, sending her home.  His head was full of her quiet, settled reassurance, and the sound of her voice.  
  
He hadn’t trusted someone in so long.  And he did; he trusted her.    
  
  
***  
  
  
_**Poland 1945**_  
  
  
_He was afraid to breathe into the silence.  Her head was tucked under his chin and he couldn’t see her face._  
  
_“Do you believe me?” he finally asked._  
  
_She lifted her head.  She was pale, looking shaken but still with him._  
  
_“I believe you.”_  
  
_“Why?_  
  
_He wanted to believe her.  He wanted it as much as he wanted her faith, but the golden hours with Nora still haunted him, the moments when he’d held her, thinking he was safe, dressing and shaving as though nothing were wrong, until men had burst into his home and held him down, tying him up like an animal and dragging him away._  
  
_He was thrust back into the present when Abigail touched his face, tracing smile lines delicately.  She smoothed a hand over his cheek and looked into his eyes, her face serious._  
  
_“Would you lie to me?”_  
  
_“No.  I wouldn’t lie to you,” he said, the truth of his words painful.  Lying was as much a survival skill as running; he’d become adept at both, and both failed him when he was with her.  “I can’t lie to you.”_  
  
_“I didn’t think so.”  She looked around them, at the little medical hut with its wire shelves, with the cluttered mess of supplies she’d knocked over in her shock, and then back to him.  “Who else knows?”_  
  
_“No one.”_  
  
_No one knew he came back, at least.  There were likely a few still living who’d seen a man evaporate into the ether, but there was no one he had bothered to go back to and assure, to reclaim his position as a living person in their minds._  
  
_She fell into a solemn quietude that made her look older than her years.  Henry rubbed her arm gently, wanting to reassure her without disturbing her thoughts._  
  
_“Just the two of us, then,” she finally said._  
  
_He nodded, a tiny spark of hope lighting in his chest._  
  
_“The two of us,” he repeated._  
  
  
***  
  
  
When she got home, Jo downed as many pills as she was allowed and crawled into bed.  Her mind had slowed to a standstill, overtaxed and overfull, and she had nothing left.  
  
It was the same exhaustion of the days after Sean’s death, when the world felt barely recognizable.  Even something as simple as brushing her teeth at night before bed required reordering her thoughts and behaviour.  There’d never been any reprieve from the reshuffling of reality unless she slept.  She either slept or hid herself in work, trying to avoid everything in between.  
  
And now, here she was again.  She wanted to sleep for weeks and skip all the hard work of getting things straight again.  The dream of Henry’s death followed her into sleep and out again, and part of her wished she’d dragged Henry home with her just to make sure he’d be there when she woke again.  It was desperately unfair she’d be marked by something that wasn’t real.  She wished the memory would go away.  
  
But it was real.  He’d shot himself to save her life.  She wondered if she could do that; shoot herself to save someone else.  To save Henry.  
  
She slept for fourteen hours, and it was almost noon when she checked her messages and saw the text from Abe.    
  
_I’m throwing Henry a coming out party.  Dinner at 7 tomorrow?_  
  
She read the message more times than such a scant collection of words deserved. Henry and Abe’s little world felt like the only place where her new reality made sense.  Wasn’t that a twist?  
  
She quickly keyed in her answer before she changed her mind.     
  
_I’ll be there. What should I bring?_


	6. Chapter 6

  
  
The days passed in a blur, but Henry forced himself back into his routine, finding comfort in repetition.  At his core he was a creature of habit; he adapted little by little, though he was willing to admit that most of his changes were merely new forms of his old behaviours.    
  
When Abe was particularly irritated with Henry, Abe would delight in using it against him.  Once, he’d switched out all of Henry’s fountain pens for cheap ballpoints, driving him to distraction.  That paled in comparison to the month where he’d shuffled all the furniture around in Henry’s laboratory.  Twice.    
  
For the most part he catered to Henry’s eccentricities, which included a predictable weekly meal schedule.  However, when Henry walked in the door from work, the heavy scent of garlic and basil greeted him, along with the sharp smell of parmesan and asiago; Abe’s signature marinara sauce, the recipe he’d been perfecting the last twenty years.  This particular dish was not on his list of regularly prepared weekday meals.  
  
Some unexpected changes were a delight, with Abe’s culinary experimentation among them.  
  
“What’s the occasion?” he called out towards the kitchen.  
  
“Company!”  
  
Henry hung up his coat and wandered in to find Abe setting the water to boil for the fresh pasta.  He folded his arms, curious.  
  
“Do you have a date coming over?  I’d planned to spend the night in, but I suppose I do have some work in my lab.”  He raised an eyebrow.  “Unless you’d planned for her to stay.   I’m not entirely pleased by the idea of having to spend the night on the couch downstairs without some warning.”  
  
Abe wiped his hands on the kitchen towel and reached for a glass and an open wine bottle.  
  
“I invited Jo for dinner,” he said as he filled the glass.  
  
Henry stared at him, dumbstruck, and Abe pushed the glass of wine into his hand.  
  
“You did what?”  
  
“I invited her for dinner,”  Abe repeated and turned away to stir the simmering sauce.  “Someone had to.”  
  
He took a drink of wine, bigger than he’d intended, and he coughed a bit as some of it went down the wrong way.  
  
“You should have asked me,” he sputtered when he was able.  
  
“What, and give you more time to freak out?”  Abe dipped a spoon in and tasted the sauce, smacking his lips.  “Nah, I wanted to keep it to a minimum.”  
  
“Wait, when is she arriving?”  He lowered the glass and looked at the clock.  It was quarter to seven already, and Abe’s in-progress dinner looked on its way to done, meaning—  
  
“‘Bout fifteen minutes.”  
  
“Abraham!”  
  
“Revenge is sweet, Father dear,” Abe said, sprinkling a little salt into the water.  “Consider it a thank you gift for that lovely coffee chat I got to have with Jo without any warning at all.”  
  
“I said I was sorry for that—repeatedly, as you may remember.  But using Jo for petty revenge in order to make me uncomfortable is far beneath you.  It’s certainly not fair to her.”  
  
“Oh come off it, you know me better than that.”  He pointed a wooden spoon at him with a serious look before putting it in the sauce to give it a stir.  “I just thought we could all use the company.”  
  
“Abe,”  Henry said, holding up his hand as though he could push back Abe’s argument—or better yet, time, and unmake the invitation.  “She’s been gracious enough to accept this all as it is.  If she wants my company, she knows well enough how to contact me.”  
  
“She agreed to come, didn’t she?  She didn’t have to.”  
  
“Well, yes,” he conceded.  “But still, Abe.”  
  
He tapped his fingers on the glass, nerves getting the best of him.  It wasn’t that he didn’t want her company.  Too much the opposite.  She’d sat in front of him, accepted him, and then slipped away with a pat on his arm and a simple goodbye, leaving him to the revelation that his life would march on exactly the same.  Jo knew, and it didn’t change anything.  At the same time, it changed everything.  
  
He’d tried to push her gentle words out of his mind, to not curl his hand around her her phantom grip whenever he thought of her, but it was impossible to set aside the import of having her believe him, truly believe him.  Just as hard as forgetting her distress when he lifted her gun, or the manic terror of goading himself into pulling the trigger.    
  
Henry sighed and rubbed his temple.  This death was sticking with him.  He’d grown more proficient at sloughing off their effects, but this one refused to go.  
  
“You’ve got a chance here,  Henry.  Don’t blow it.”  
  
“A chance for what?”  He dropped his hand and frowned at Abe, having lost the thread of their conversation.  
  
“A friend.  Someone to talk to.”  
  
“I have—“  
  
“Someone besides me.”  
  
Henry set his wine down on the counter with growing frustration, suddenly seeing the reasoning behind Abe’s actions—the same old familiar, overdone argument between them, back again.  
  
“Abe, for the last time I am not some—some tortoise to be foisted off!”  
  
“A tortoise?”  Abe frowned at him over his shoulder.  “What the hell are you talking about?”  
  
“A long-lived pet that you have to find a home for,” he elaborated, spreading his hands wide.  He let them drop to his sides with a sigh.  “I’m fine as I am.   _Will_ be fine.  And I’m more than capable of looking after myself, thank you—I did so for many years before you and your mother.”  
  
“That’s not the most convincing argument you could have used,” Abe said, picking up the bread knife and turning his attention to a loaf of fresh olive bread.  “Not if that was anything like after Mom left.”  
  
Henry watched the knife sawing through the bread with more force than necessary, the remark slicing through him in much the same way.  He was certain Abe hadn’t intended to strike at him quite that hard, and he did his best to cover his reaction, but he couldn’t find an appropriate response.  Abe looked up when Henry didn’t answer him, and rolled his eyes.  
  
“Oh for pete’s sake.”  Abe let the knife clatter to the counter and planted his hands.  “Look, when was the last time either you or I could just talk to someone.  Hm?  No dancing around, but just _talk_.  It’s not like I care, really.  I’m used to it.  But sometimes it would be nice to have someone over without suddenly realizing we forgot to agree on which story we were telling this time if they ask how we know each other.”  
  
Henry followed Abe’s train of thought to Jo’s last invitation to dinner, of the stumbling through their false history, of Abe goaded into telling a tale of his own childhood and recasting Henry as the child in question.  His anger shed away; this wasn’t only about himself, but Abe.  Abe wanted one more person in their tiny world, someone to talk to, someone who understood.  Henry’s shadow had been cast over him his whole life, demanding a secrecy that affected them both, and this was a sudden opportunity.  
  
Didn’t care, indeed.  
  
Abe sniffed and straightened, lifting his chin defiantly.  
  
“Besides, Jo’s good people.  So let’s just have a nice dinner.  She’ll have some questions, we can answer them, and the sooner she gets used to this whole thing, the sooner it’ll go back to normal.”  
  
Abe picked up the knife again and continued cutting the bread.  
  
“Very well.  Though my opinion doesn’t matter at this point, clearly.”  
  
“Nope.  Just drink your wine and relax.  It’ll be fine.”  
  
Henry looked around the apartment, overcome by the urge to dust and tidy up, but of course everything was already in place, Abe having done whatever touches were needed during the day.  He looked at the clock.  Ten minutes left.  Now he was glad Abe hadn’t told him earlier.    
  
At least he had time to change before she arrived.

 

***

  
  
Henry was hovering in the hall when she knocked, waiting for her arrival.  Jo was always prompt, a trait which he appreciated, and tonight was no different.  She had her hands in her pockets, wrapped up against the chill evening wind.  She pulled out a hand and wiggled her fingers in a small wave, and though her smile was faint, it was there.    
  
Even through the glass he could feel her assessing gaze as he crossed the shop towards the door, the same one from his office that said she was busy rethinking him start to finish.  It made him feel like he was standing naked in front of her.    
  
On second thought, being naked would be a lot easier.    
  
He pulled the door open and smiled, hoping he didn’t look quite as nervous as he felt.    
  
“Hello, Detective.  Please, come in.”  
  
“Hi, Henry.  Thanks,” she said as he held the door for her.  
  
As she passed him, he noted with relief that her limp was less exaggerated, her lean on the cane lighter.  She was healing; slowly, but on the mend nonetheless.  
  
“I, ah, thank you for coming this evening,” he said, tweaking at his tie to set it straight.  It was already straight, given that he’d done this same maneuver twice already.  He smoothed his hands over his waistcoat and took a deep breath.  Fidgeting like an errant schoolboy was not going to help anything.  Jo caught him at it when she glanced over at him.  She bit her lip, then put her hand in her coat pocket.  
  
“Here.”  Jo pulled out a package and thrust it at him.    
  
It was wrapped in shiny gold paper.  He took it and turned it over in his hands before looking back to her.  He wished he could read her expression, have some hint of her thoughts, but his skills had deserted him.  His own nerves had thrust her into a blind spot, leaving him floundering in unaccustomed uncertainty.  
  
“What’s this?”  
  
“A gift.  Open it.”  
  
He unwrapped the packaged, revealing a book.  He turned it over to see the cover.    
  
“A Brief History of Manhattan,” he read, and then cringed when he recognized the title from the city’s recent love affair with the book.  “Oh, Jo, this book is full of rubbish.”  At her wry look he remembered far too late that it was a gift, likely one with good intentions.  “Sorry.  Thank you.”    
  
He winced when she snorted at his poor show of gratitude and prepared for a more sincere apology, but she beat him to an answer.  
  
“Nope, that’s what I expected.  I figured you’d have a great time telling me all the things they got wrong.”  
  
Startled, he shut his mouth.  She was teasing him, like this was nothing more than another of his quirks, something else she could use to rattle his cage when she thought he was getting too cocky.  As he studied her, she ducked her head with a growing smile, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear.  Dizzy relief washed over him as he broke out into a grin. He probably looked a fool, but he couldn’t stop himself.  
  
“Nothing would please me more than to set this straight,” he said, shaking the book lightly.  “Trust me, I’ve thought a great many times about sending a scathing letter to this man who purports himself to be a historian.”  
  
“I bet you have,” she said, and followed him upstairs.

 

***

 

“Corn starch, one end of the house to the other.  He’d tried to clean it up without telling us, and had virtually painted the house white.  He was white as a ghost.  It was on the ceiling, I can’t imagine how, and the look on his face when we walked in—“  
  
“Unbelievable,”  Abe grumbled. “How do you remember all this stuff?”  
  
“Hard to forget.  We found smears of it for years after, right up until we left that place.”  
  
They sat chatting over their demolished dinner, Abe having acquitted himself splendidly as usual.  In his soaring relief, Henry had forgot himself and was two glasses of wine in and sipping his third before he realized he’d grown light-headed, and that his natural chattiness was overtaking him with a vengeance.  The warm and peaceful happiness filling him made him think he might actually be floating.  
  
“Do you know what it’s like to be an old man and still have your father around to tell embarrassing stories about you?  Hm?” Abe said, turning to Jo.  “Oh, but here’s one for you…”  
  
Stories that they’d left untouched for years had come back, both of them dusting off fond memories for both Jo and each other, until Henry’s stomach hurt from laughter.  Jo and Abe both coaxed him into fetching his box of photos from the basement, and that spurred another round of stories from both of them while Jo listened, rapt.  
  
Jo laughed as Abe finished a story of Henry’s attempts to deal with the seventies, tears of mirth in her eyes.  
  
“That’s amazing,” she said to Abe, wiping a finger under her eye with a smile.  
  
“Amazing is Henry in polyester.  Hang on, I know there’s a picture here somewhere…”  Abe shuffled the photos on the table, plucking his find out with a satisfied cry and handing it to Jo.  
  
Henry couldn’t help sitting back and watching the two of them as they fell into an easy rapport.   Jo liked his son, and Abe liked his partner—his friend.  It gave him a sense of completion, like a final piece had been dropped into a puzzle, to see them bonding like this.  
  
“Totally surreal,” she said with a smile.  “Everything.  All of it.”  
  
“Ah, you get used to it.”  Abe glanced up at Henry and caught him before Henry could sit up straight and stop resting his head on his fist, before he’d managed to school the daft smile from his features.  Abe winked at him.  “I’ve got some flan in the kitchen I need to check on, see if it’s set up.”  
  
“Let me help you,”  Henry said, rising quickly from his seat, but Abe waved him down into his seat again.  
  
“Nah, I got it.  I’ll be right back.”  
  
Embarrassed at having been caught mooning, Henry started tidying up the photos on the table in anticipation of the arriving dessert.   Jo helped him, gathering the photos within her reach into a pile.  She paused over one and Henry glanced over to see which it was.  A posed family photo, containing the one story he and Abe had gently dodged around by silent agreement, with only vague references here and there.  But she was here, scattered across the table and the years, an indelible part of his memories.    
  
“That’s Abigail,” he offered.  
  
Her eyes flicked up to him, and she handed him the photo to put back in his box.  He tucked it away without looking at it.    
  
“I figured,” she said.  “She was beautiful.”  
  
“Yes, she was.”  
  
He gathered the pile Jo had made and put them in the box, shutting the lid on so many memories.  Jo was watching him, and he knew his expression gave away far too much.  Abe regularly told him his poker face was terrible, but he smiled anyway and picked up the box.  
  
“I’ll put these away and grab another bottle of wine from the cellar downstairs.”  
  
She nodded silently and leaned back in her chair.  He turned and trotted off downstairs.  
  
He paused on the staircase before his line of sight disappeared and snuck a last look at Jo.  She was looking around the apartment, sharp and keen as always, but with none of the tension that said she was five seconds from walking away, as though she would throw up a shield to block out any more input from him.  
  
She seemed comfortable in his home.  In his life.  It had to be a good sign, if her acceptance was such that she felt comfortable here.  
  
Her sweeping gaze travelled the room towards him, and before she could catch sight of him he hurried onward down the stairs to lock up the photos once more.

 

***

 

_**Poland 1945** _  
  
_Henry and Abigail were forced to remember the outside world when a series of shouts from soldiers bringing wounded to camp and the roar of transports rattled the tin shed.  He didn’t want to leave things as they were, with only this tentative peace between them, but they had to return to the hospital._  
  
_Abigail made sure the coast was clear before they left the shed, scouting ahead.  The camp was in disarray as people worked at the cleanup effort.  Henry tilted the brim of his helmet forward while keeping his face down to avoid calling unnecessary attention to himself; he didn’t want to be forced into making up any more stories about why he was wearing a uniform from the wrong country._  
  
_As soon as he made it to his barracks and changed with Abigail guarding the door, he stepped outside.  He took half the supplies she had in her arms, which had been her original objective when he’d surprised—no, terrified her._  
  
_At the hospital they were immediately thrown into the fray of battle cleanup of the wounded.  They worked side-by-side, seamless as ever, her hands at the ready whenever he needed them, as though they were one organism.  By nightfall they were both so tired that Henry sat in the hall outside surgery, not bothering to find a chair or even walk further than necessary.  He was gruellingly tired to his core and barely able to stay awake._  
  
_Abigail dropped by his side and leaned against him, obviously uncaring of the propriety of such an action.  Henry smiled at her._  
  
_“Are you doing alright?” he asked._  
  
_“Exhausted,” she answered with a sigh._  
  
_He put an arm around her and pulled her close.  She relaxed fully, closing her eyes and resting her head on his shoulder.  He waited for a moment until a pair of nurses went by, both of them giving Henry and Abigail a look that betrayed their amusement.  One of them hid a tittering laugh behind her hand, but neither seemed offended.  When they were out of earshot, he whispered to Abigail._  
  
_“I meant about…everything.”_  
  
_But she was asleep on his shoulder._  
  
_He sighed, relaxing against the wall.  Well, she was here with him.  She felt safe enough to sleep in his presence.  That had to be a good indication that things were going to be alright.  And he felt safe with her._  
  
_In moments, his own fatigue dragged him down._

 

***

 

Over the course of dinner, Jo started to realize she’d stopped observing and started just…being there.  
  
Henry looked more relaxed and at ease; his nerves appeared to have settled, no doubt thanks to Abe constantly refilling Henry’s wine glass.  She’d kept it to a sip or two, not wanting to mix it with her painkillers, but Henry was obviously a little tipsy.  She’d never seen him anything less than contained, unless he was in the middle of chasing an idea, enthused by some discovery, and then he was nothing but sharp determination, his words never-ending but swift and precise.  
  
Now the thing that lit him up was regaling her with stories of Abe’s childhood, memories tumbling like waterfalls, his manner friendly and open like she never thought she’d see.  While about as understandable as modern art, Henry was a picture that was finally in focus.  
  
Henry laughed, beaming openly at Abe.  The banter back and forth between them was so loving, so normal.  He was easy and comfortable in his fatherly role, and Abe was like a grumbling teenager at times.  Henry looked at Abe with such obvious pride and love, with the same expression Hanson had when he came with pictures on his phone, or the stories he used to share about first words and first steps, and then t-ball victories and good report cards in more recent years.    
  
She’d seen the connection between Henry and Abe from the beginning, and now it made sense.  It made _sense_.  It was so easy to believe.  The night rolled on as doubt and caution faded into acceptance, until the spikes of out-of-body unreality only hit her once in a while instead of being the steady norm.    
  
Jo helped with the dishes despite Abe’s insistence she didn’t need to, and Henry wandered off to find pleasant music to put on, having been warned severely that opera was too much for tonight.  
  
“Thanks for coming over,” Abe said as he dried a plate.    
  
“Thanks for the invite.”  She hadn’t known what to expect when she got in the cab, armed with only the silly book and and the hope that it would break the ice.  “It’s a little...I don’t know.  Easier, now.”  
  
“Well, good.”  Abe had a pleased glow about him, and it pulled a smile from her.  
  
The warm atmosphere was so wonderful compared to her empty house that she found she didn’t want to leave.  She wondered what it would be like to come home to something like this, someone who knew her the way these two knew each other.  The levity of her mood dimmed.  She’d had that, once.  
  
She picked up another plate to dry.  Now wasn’t the time to think about it.  
  
“I haven’t seen him this happy in years.”  Abe scooped up silverware from the stack of dishes they’d dried and opened the drawer to put them away.  
  
“How so?”  
  
“Oh, uh,” Abe said, pausing a moment before continuing on dropping the silverware into their spots.  He shrugged.  “Been a long time, that’s all.”  
  
He avoided her gaze, looking like he wished he hadn’t said anything, and she picked up on his meaning.  A long time since Abigail.  Jo was starting to see the clear outlines of the hole the woman had left in the lives of these two men.  
  
Abe picked up his towel and started drying another dish, both of them falling into silence, until the strains of heavy-handed strings started from living room, quickly layered over with a deep voice thick with vibrato.  
  
Abe threw down his towel as he pivoted and glared towards the living room.  
  
“Oh for crying out loud— _Henry_!  I said _no opera_!”

 

***

 

After dinner, their conversation drifted to work and the cases Henry had been fielding while she’d been recuperating.  Abe left them to it, saying he had some puttering to do in the shop, and they tucked up on the couch with coffee, falling into familiar patterns with comforting ease.  
  
“Did you get anything on the crane case?” she asked.  “What was the story with the chemistry stuff, or whatever you were looking for?”  
  
“I’m afraid Detective Hanson was a little reticent to include me in his follow-up interviews, so I’m not entirely up to date on his investigation.”    
  
Henry’s tone was tactful, but Jo could practically hear Hanson’s more colourful delivery of the sentiment, along with Henry’s huffy response.  However, having dealt herself with trying to leave Henry behind, she doubted that was the end of it.  
  
“Uh-huh.  So what have you found out?”  
  
“I have no idea what you’re implying, Detective,” Henry said, poorly hiding his smile.  
  
“Come on, Henry.  Spill.”  
  
That was all it took to get his eyes to flare brightly with childlike enthusiasm.  
  
“The lab is moving horrendously slow, as usual, and since the nature of the corrosive used on the metal will yield the path to our suspect, _and_ since I have my own equipment here—”  
  
“—you brought evidence home without permission so you could run some tests,” she finished.  “God, Henry.  You are a litigator’s worst nightmare.”  
  
“Only a _little_ evidence,” Henry corrected, holding up his fingers with a fraction of space between them.  “I left plenty for the lab to do their work, and their tests will back up my results.  I’ll just have them sooner.  Come, I’ll show you.”  
  
Henry leapt from the couch and Jo hurried to grab her cane and follow him downstairs as Henry delivered a stream of chatter on the rate of metal oxidation under various conditions and various corrosives.  It flowed past her like most of Henry’s technical chatter did; she was content to leave some things to experts, while she did the job of using the conclusions to solve the crime.  His enthusiasm was catching, however, and it was hard not to smile as he expounded on his findings.  
  
He led her to his laboratory, as he called it, and a table set up with various glassware and experiments in progress.  He pointed out little bubbling flakes in a pool of amber liquid as he cut loose with more explanations that she didn’t even pretend to understand.  
  
Her attention started to drift as he rattled on, and she glanced around the laboratory space.  The first time she’d been down here it had been with a search warrant in hand, picking through a frightening assortment of what could have been a serial killer’s stash.  Knowing Henry now, she had trouble picturing him harming anyone.  It was still a pretty weird collection.  Maybe a guy got a little quirky over a couple of centuries.    
  
She realized he’d stopped talking and she glanced back at him to find him looking at her sheepishly.  
  
“I’m sorry, I got carried away.”  
  
“It’s okay.  It’s kind of nice.  You know, have things back to normal.”  
  
Henry’s answering smile was flush with relief.  It was the same desperate gratefulness that had nearly moved him to tears in his office when she’d said she was willing to believe him, and when he’d realized that the book gift was the same again, a gesture of good faith.  He was so eager for any sign of her acceptance it was almost painful to see.  
  
Her thoughts must have shown on her face, because Henry blinked rapidly and looked away from her.  He cleared his throat.  
  
“Yes.  Yes, it is.”  
  
She touched his arm, giving it a small squeeze of reassurance before she walked past him, pretending interest in the assorted posters on the wall behind his desk in order to give him space to collect himself.  
  
“You’re pretty set up down here.  How long have you been living in this place?”  
  
“A little under four years.”  Henry swivelled around to take in the lab, seizing on her question with enthusiasm.  “Just before I started at the chief medical examiner’s office.  Abe has had the store since the nineties, but he was very accommodating—this was all storage, and he let me take over.  First time in a long time I’ve had the stability to set up a laboratory again.”  
  
“You two seem close.”  
  
“We are.  We’ve had our moments, of course, as any parent and child do.  But it’s good to be near him again.”  
  
She looked over her shoulder to find Henry’s gaze cast upward, as though he could see Abe through the floor above them, and she was reminded of a picture from the box; a single photo of Henry in a doctor’s coat, stethoscope around his neck, holding Abe as a baby.  It captured a moment of intense focus between them, but the look was the same—full of love.  
  
“It’s nice that you’ve got each other.”  
  
He drifted back, focusing on her.  
  
“I’m very grateful for him.  In more ways than I can say.  I’ve been a very lucky father.”  
  
They’d thought about having kids, her and Sean.  She wasn’t sure they ever really would have, but the conversation had come on the table a few times, here and there; when he’d finished law school, when she’d finished the Academy, when he’d started at the DA’s office, when she’d made detective.  Each time they’d brushed the decision aside, knowing there’d be time in the future if they changed their minds.    
  
The years had passed, and she knew it was unlikely they would have ended up having any, both of them content with their life as it was, but the open-ended conversation was brought to an abrupt and definitive close when Sean died.    
  
The ring was warm as she fiddled with it, the anatomy poster in front of her fading out of focus.  She hated these moments, when she’d think of yet another road not taken, blocked off forever now that Sean was gone. She clutched the ring hard and focused on the bite of it against her palm, trying to push everything back behind the door she kept closed over thoughts like this.  She didn’t want to slip into that grief right now, but it was hovering under her like a black chasm, ready to swallow her if she took a wrong step.    
  
Henry’s silence behind her was stretching, and she cast about for something to break it.  On Henry’s desk was Abigail’s picture, an old portrait in the style of a different era.  Did Henry have similar portraits of himself around?  She picked it up, looking at the perpetually youthful face smiling back at her.    
  
She heard Henry approach her, and she looked up at him when he stood at her side.  His attention was focused on the portrait in her hands.  He gently pulled the picture from her hands, his fingers grazing hers as he took it.  He stroked the frame with his thumb for a moment, then set it back on the desk, careful enough that the wood made no sound as it connected with the desktop.  He looked at Jo, then after a moment’s hesitation, he brushed his hand along her arm, mirroring her earlier comfort.  She was still clutching the ring, she realized, and she made a conscious effort to release it and let her hand drop.  Henry put his hands in his pockets, sighing.  
  
“I remember the first year.”  He hummed thoughtfully.  “Rather, I _don’t_ remember most of the first year.  I didn’t handle it gracefully.  The first anniversary is difficult.  It gets easier after that, in some ways.  In others, the guilt is even greater when you realize you’ve stopped thinking of them every day, stopped being able to say exactly how long it’s been since they’ve been gone.”  
  
Of course Henry knew where her thoughts were.  He always seemed to know the things no one said, or wanted to say.  Or maybe it was that he understood.  Jo looked at Abigail’s picture, refusing to let this be about herself.  
  
“She died?”  
  
Henry sucked a deep breath, then let it out slowly.  
  
“No.  She left.”  His voice was falsely light and a little too loud as he turned and walked away from her.  “I think she thought she was doing me a mercy.  Making it so I didn’t have to stay with her, watch her get older.  I should have seen it coming, I suppose.”  He sat on the couch and put his feet on the low table, crossing his ankles.  He shrugged.  “Maybe I did see it; I did everything I could to forestall it.  Greyed my hair, wore glasses with false lenses, dressed older.”  He huffed a small, humourless laugh.  “She left me a note on the kitchen countertop. With this.”    
  
Jo crossed over to the couch as Henry pulled his pocket watch out, and she sat next to him as he turned it over in his hand, the metal gleaming in the low lamplight.    
  
“A parting gift.  She gave me back one part of my life, and took away another.”    
  
Henry looked like he was somewhere else, deep in memories.  She recognized the look from the way his thoughts drifted on occasion, when she had to prompt him back to whatever they were doing.  
  
“Forty years, and it wasn’t near long enough,” he mumbled, frowning at the watch, his voice thick.  
  
She knew that feeling well.  She felt a stab of jealousy that he should have all those years of memories to hold.  Eleven years was barely a flicker in comparison, not even close to the lifetime together that she and Sean had planned on and taken for granted.  But Henry’s pain was so obvious, so familiar, that it was like feeling her own fresh all over again.  
  
With a sigh, Jo leaned against Henry and let her head rest on his shoulder.  They sat in silence for a moment, and then Henry tucked the watch back in his pocket and shifted to put his arm around her.  He rested his head on the top of hers.    
  
“Well, I’ve gotta hand it to you, Henry, that is not your typical breakup story.”  
  
Henry laughed at Jo’s flippancy and squeezed her.  
  
“Mine is not a typical story in any fashion.”  
  
“Isn’t it?  Seems like it’s just stretched out.  People have marriages that end.”  She tried not to let the hurt take her down, but it clawed its way into her throat and burned at her eyes.  She steadied herself before speaking again.  “People die.  You lose them before you’re ready.”  
  
“You’re never ready, Jo,” he answered quietly.  “Never.”  
  
A tear escaped her, and he placed a soft kiss into the top of her head.  His tenderness was the last strike to the crumbling dam.  She sobbed once, trying to bite her lip to keep it back, but it was useless.  
  
Henry wrapped his arms around her and held her as for the first time in months she cried, tears soaking into his shirt.  She shifted to put her arms around his chest and hug him tight.  He was silent as he rocked her until he shuddered when he sucked in a deep breath, once, then again.

 

***

 

Jo’s sobs subsided after a while, and they sat quietly together until Henry grew stiff from the position.  He shuffled to lean against the couch arm so they could rest comfortably, and she shifted her legs onto the couch to curl up against him.  Henry rubbed her back in slow, soothing circles, trying to focus on the touch to calm himself as much as anything.    
  
He’d managed to avoid falling into this sharp grief for so long that he’d forgotten how close it was to the surface of his thoughts, how easy it was to tumble over the edge if he let himself.  He squeezed his eyes shut when another wave rolled over him and he held his breath, not willing to start again.  Jo put her hand over his heart and he covered it with his own, pressing it tight to his chest, as though it would keep him together.  He was so grateful she was here with him, so glad to hold her, as though he’d drift off entirely if she wasn’t here to weigh him down.  She lifted her head and looked up at him, soft and reassuring.  
  
“Thank you,” he murmured.  
  
She smiled gently and he put his hand on her cheek, brushing her cheekbone with his thumb.  He wasn’t sure when she’d become so important to him, when she’d begun to hold such sway over him.  He travelled the line of her cheek again to her chin, then traced the edge of her lip.  Her eyes flickered to his.  
  
It was muscle memory as much as need that let his head tip forward and catch her mouth in a kiss.  
  
Slowly, she leaned into it with a sigh.  The hand against his chest curled into a fist, a solid knot against his heart.  
  
His face was still damp with tears as much as hers, and there was no passion to it, only deep comfort. He stroked her cheek, her hair, taking as much assurance as he gave back to her.  The kiss subsided and they rested their foreheads together.  
  
Jo shifted to rub her nose against his, and then laid another soft kiss against his lips.  She drew back and looked at him with red-rimmed eyes.  With a sad smile he let his fingers weave through her hair and push it back, knowing what she would say.  She tilted her head into the touch, her eyes closed.  
  
“Henry,” she sighed.  “I don’t think I can do this.”  
  
“I know.”  He slid his hand down her arm to take her hand from his chest, lacing his fingers in hers, studying the way they looked in his.  “I didn’t mean to—to...”  He swallowed down the thick emotion.  
  
“To what?”  
  
“To care.  To care so much,” he said finally.  “But I do.  A great deal.  Rather inescapably, I’m afraid.”  Her head was still tipped to the side, her eyes soft and warm with compassion.  He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed her fingers.  “I should have left, but I didn’t.”  
  
Her lips pressed together as she took in his words, her thoughts well hidden.  He focused instead on their hands and the curl of his fingers over hers.  
  
“You know, I close my eyes, and I can still see you die.”  
  
The pain in her voice rattled the truth from him.    
  
“And I can see you.  Hear your voice,” Henry admitted.  “Hear the gun.”  
  
“How do we make that go away?”  
  
He shook his head, grasping for an easy answer, but there wasn’t one.    
  
“Make better memories to replace those, I suppose.”    
  
He rubbed his thumb along the back of her hand, over the soft skin.  She shifted against him, sitting up straighter.  
  
“Is that what you’re trying to do?  Replace memories?”  
  
“What?”  He looked up.  She was intent on him, unreadable, as she so often was to him.  “I don’t—”  
  
“Who’s the last person you told?  Who knew all this, that you let in?  Seventy years ago, you said.”

He was abruptly tempted to walk away from her.  He loosened his grip on her hand to pull away but she tightened her fingers in his, not letting him escape her—or her question.  She was shrewdly perceptive, as always, and he felt cornered by her insight.  He’d lacked it for himself, too wrapped up in his emotions and events to step back.  A brief spark of anger flared and faded away, until he was left with sadness.  
  
“It was different.  Though not completely, I suppose.  I hadn’t planned it then, either.”  He looked at Jo, at her patience, her kindness, her strength.  “And I couldn’t leave her, either.”  
  
“I’m not her,” she said quietly.  “I can’t be her.”  
  
“No, you can’t.  I don’t want you to be.”  He looked at her intently, open and honest.  “No one could replace her.  Anymore than someone could replace Sean.”  
  
She nodded, her eyes lowering.  
  
“Life goes on,” she murmured.  The way she said it, it was half to him, half to herself.  
  
“Doesn’t it just,” he said with a faint smile.    
  
She hesitated and then leaned in to kiss him again.  A press of warm lips, chaste and gentle, and his eyes slid closed.  She pulled back and touched his cheek, her fingers brushing away the few tears he’d let out.    
  
“Or someday it probably will.  But not yet.”  
  
He nodded, not ready to open his eyes.  The pain in his chest was too great still, and he breathed in and out, slow and steady, until it subsided.  When he opened his eyes she was calm, the only sign of her tears being the puffiness around her eyes.    
  
“I’m going to head home now.”    
  
He nodded, releasing her hand and moving his arm from around her.  She shuffled to the edge of the couch and stood, and he followed her as she headed for the stairs.  They were quiet as he fetched her coat and he hailed the cab for her.  
  
Before she got into the cab, she kissed him on the cheek.    
  
“Thanks for having me over tonight.”  
  
“Thank you for coming.  For everything.”  It wasn’t near enough, but there were no words to describe the mess in his head right now, and so it would do.  
  
She tilted her head and looked at him for a moment, then with a little nod got into the cab and pulled the door shut.  He watched it drive away, disappearing around the corner at the intersection, before he turned to go back inside.    
  
Abe was seated in his armchair, book in hand, when he made it upstairs.  He closed it and took off his glasses when Henry entered.  
  
“Jo go home?”  
  
Henry nodded.  He shoved his hands in his pockets, looking around the apartment.  Quiet and still again, just the two of them.  He wandered to his own armchair that bracketed the table, taking up his spot for his usual evening read before bed, but he didn’t feel the urge to pick up a book.  
  
“You okay?”  
  
“Yes, fine.”  
  
From the corner of his eye he could see Abe looking him over.  He was sure he was a sight, eyes still red from poorly managed emotions.  Probably no point trying to hide it.  He felt wrung out.    
  
Abe pushed himself out of the chair and came to his side.  He leaned down and patted Henry on the shoulder, then stroked the back of his head before withdrawing.  It was the same comforting motion Henry had always used on Abe from the time he was little; brief and soothing.  
  
“It’ll be okay.”  
  
Henry shook his head, tears burning at his throat again.  
  
“Abe, I have no idea what I’m doing.”  
  
“You’re living life, Henry.  Same as the rest of us.”  
  
With a last squeeze of Henry’s shoulder, he turned and left for bed, leaving Henry to his thoughts.    



	7. Chapter 7

Only two and a half weeks since the building collapse, and already the new case files were a stack three inches high.    
  
With no one to play the _“oh I forgot”_ game with at the end of each day, Hanson had grudgingly kept up with the necessary notes and documentation. He’d turned over custody of the files to her with unconcealed delight when she’d walked through the door, but his face fell when she reminded him he’d still have to finish the reports himself for each one, given how much she’d missed.  It was fine payback for years of reports she’d typed up, as far as she was concerned.  
  
She flipped through the first file and scanned Hanson’s scrawled notes in the margins of the rough first draft of a case report, trying to get up to speed.  She doubted even two centuries of practice would improve Hanson’s chicken scratch.    
  
The thought made her drop the file to the desk and rub her dry eyes.  Not again.  Why couldn’t she get _over_ it already?  
  
Despite the fact it stood out from the rest of her thoughts like a flickering letter in a neon sign, Henry’s immortality was surprisingly irrelevant.  He had two extra centuries on everyone else to practice medicine, chemistry, penmanship, and who knew what else, and he’d built up all the skills that made him a hell of an asset in their work.    
  
But that was all it was.  He was still Henry.    
  
And, if she were perfectly honest with herself, she missed him.  It shouldn’t have surprised her to find someone so warm and caring underneath all the layers of quirky behaviour he wielded like a sword to drive people off when they got too near.  She’d seen moments of it when she dragged him along on cases, when he’d invited her home for dinner that first time—when he and Abe had fed her that fake story about Henry’s mythical father as Abe’s business partner.  But then to be welcomed into his home, Abe’s home, to be treated like family herself…    
  
She’d been tempted so many times to call him all week.  Only the lingering memory of the sweet sincerity of his kiss, the honest confession that was as close to _I love you_ as a person could get without saying so, kept her from doing it.    
  
She couldn’t.  She wasn’t ready.  She still felt a sickening roll of guilt every time she realized how much she cared about him too.  It was too much, too soon.  She shouldn’t drag them both into something that would destroy a solid partnership.  Friendship.  Whatever they had.    
  
It certainly wasn’t fair to Henry.  Not when she was half-sure that he’d fallen in love with the idea of someone who knew the truth about him, rather than her for herself.  
  
So, she’d let it go.  He’d be sweet, weird, screwed up Henry; her partner, and a friend.  Same as before, same as ever.    
  
Literally the same, for as long as she’d know him.  
  
She sighed in frustration.  Every single mental turn, every time;  she needed to stop obsessing.  This was the new normal.  Time to get used to it.  Jo closed the folder and picked up another, determined to get through the stack by lunch.  
  
Two hours later, when she was getting through the last file, Hanson appeared at her desk, a bag of garlicky Greek takeout clutched in one hand.  
  
“You’re a saint.”  She plucked the bag from his hand and looked inside.  “Thank you.”  
  
“It’s portable.  I’m headed to another crime scene uptown.  You up for it?”  
  
Technically she was supposed to take it easy, but at this point anything was better than being chained to the desk.  She was far too antsy for low-key activities that didn’t fully occupy her attention.  
  
“Absolutely.  Let me grab my coat.  You got the keys?”    
  
“Yep,”  Hanson said, wiggling his eyebrows as he spun the keys on their ring around his finger.  “And I’m keeping ‘em, Miss Light Duty.”  
  
“Seriously?”  She raised an eyebrow at him.  “I can drive, you know.”  
  
The passenger seat was foreign territory after years of her being lead driver, but apparently Hanson was going to make the most of his opportunity to be behind the wheel.  
  
“Not a single traffic law broken in almost three weeks.”  He tucked the keys back in his pocket.  “The city already feels like a safer place.”  
  
“Ha ha,” she responded dryly.   “Okay, fine.  Just make sure we get to the crime scene by the end of today, granny driver.”  
  
She picked out a bite of chicken souvlaki from the takeout bag as they made their way to the elevator, too hungry to wait for the car.    
  
“Who’s M.E. on the case?”  she asked, trying to make her voice casual.  
  
“Henry.  I gave him a heads up and he’s on his way with CSU.”  
  
“Mm,” she grunted, and Hanson glanced at her briefly.  
  
“That okay?”  
  
“Yeah, of course.”  She took another piece of chicken and avoided his look.  “So I guess you’ve forgiven Henry and let him back on crime scenes?” Jo asked around her mouthful.  
  
Hanson harumphed slightly.  
  
“We, uh, agreed to hold off on him coming out until you got back to fieldwork.  Thought it might flow better.”  
  
“Yeah, Henry told me you guys had some professional differences in your approach.”  
  
“Saw him while you were off?”  His tone was too obviously neutral.  
  
“Yeah, he and Abe had me over for dinner last week.”  
  
“Huh.”    
  
She looked over at him but his expression was bland, his attention fully on the doors of the elevator.  She decided to ignore him, because she wasn’t willing to think about it any further.  She had a case to concentrate on, and that’s all she was going to do.  
  
  
***  
  
  
CSU was already at work when they arrived.  It had rained the night before, and everything was a muddy mess; the victim looked like he’d been rolling in it, most of him covered in muck, lying face up in the park.    
  
“Is that—what, a stick?” she asked.  
  
She leaned forward, equally intrigued and repulsed, trying to get a closer look.  A short wooden stump with an irregular, splintered end, jutted out from the side of the victim’s chest.  
  
“Yes! An arrow shaft, to be specific.”  
  
Henry’s voice floated from behind them, and she and Hanson whirled around.  He was nowhere to be seen.  A small thrill of nerves hit her, but she pushed it aside.  No point getting weird about it.  She’d known she was going to see him eventually.  
  
“Henry?”  Hanson called out.  “Where the hell are you?”  
  
“Here!”  
  
An arm popped out of a row of hedges brandishing a stick—no, the other half of the arrow, decorated with muddied white and black quills—and Henry’s beaming face followed along with the rest of him as he crawled out of the hedge.  For the first time that she could recall ever seeing, Henry was filthy.  Suit-ruining-muck-covered dirty, knees a mess from crawling under the hedges, and his suit jacket spattered and muddy up to his elbows. Even digging through a freshly laid playground surfacing trying to find a buzzing cell phone hadn’t left him this dirty.  
  
He looked back to his normal self; better than when she’d gotten into the cab and left him on the street corner looking like he’d been punched in the stomach.  Not that she’d looked much better herself that night;  she’d gotten home to look in the mirror at her streaked eye makeup and puffy redness, and lasted all of ten seconds before she started crying again over the sink, curling up on the bathroom floor like she hadn’t since the first weeks after Sean’s death.  The dark mood had passed after a few days, and she had to admit she felt a little more like her own normal self.  More than she had in a long time.  
  
Henry trotted over and crouched down next to the victim to compare the broken halves.  The splinters were an obvious match.  Not that there was much doubt; there weren’t going to be too many broken halves of arrows lying around in a park that wouldn’t be a match.  
  
Jo looked at Hanson and then Henry in alarm, the details of the here and now finally sinking in.    
  
“Someone shot him with an _arrow_?”  
  
Henry stood up, rotating the arrow shaft between his gloved fingers and watching the quills spin.  
  
“Yes, quite skillfully, too.  The shaft of the arrow snapped off when he fell to the ground, back there.  He was running between the hedges, presumably trying to dodge the shot from whomever was after him.”  
  
“Now that is some freaky Robin Hood crap right there,” Hanson said, hands on his hips.  
  
Henry beckoned for one of the CSU team members to come fetch the arrow shaft and he handed it off.  
  
“Not much hope of getting a print given the muddy state of it, but we’ll see what we can do.  There are two more arrows embedded in the ground behind the hedge; obviously a few shots missed.  We may have more luck there.”  
  
He sent the CSU woman off to dust the arrows and turned back to her and Hanson.  His gaze flickered between the two of them briefly, then knelt down to take a closer look at the body again.  
  
Jo started to crouch down opposite Henry on the other side of the body, but her leg gave a twinge and she thought better of it.  Instead she took a step closer and grimaced as her foot sunk into the squishy turf and water started seeping into her shoe.  First day back on crime scenes and she was already down a pair of shoes.  
  
Henry waved a hand over the body, fingers spread, emphasizing his explanation.  
  
“The arrow shattered the ribs, straight into the heart.  A lucky shot—and a powerful one, so I’m assuming crossbow rather than standard.  Usually the ribs would deflect it, likely fracturing them in the process but protecting the heart.  Still makes for a devastating wound, but wouldn’t lead to the immediate death this man had.  Either way, a death I certainly wouldn’t recommend.”  Henry’s voice trailed off into thoughtful tones, hand resting on the victim’s chest.    
  
Wait.  Was this the voice of experience?  The neon sign flickered yet again.  
  
Henry prodded the area surrounding the protruding arrow shaft, then dropped his hand.  He stood and met Jo’s eyes and she frowned at him.  He gave her an ironic twist of a half-smile and a deferential nod.  
  
“Welcome back, Detective.  Good to see you on your feet once again.”  
  
“Thanks.”  She narrowed her eyes, trying to read Henry’s face, but it didn’t look like he was going to give anything away at the moment.  
  
“Okay then, I guess we’ll see if our victim had any association with archery clubs, or anything like that,”  Hanson said loudly.  
  
Jo turned to Hanson, and he shot her an inscrutable look before he turned to head back towards the hedges where Henry had sent the CSU officer.  
  
“1816.”  
  
Henry had come to stand beside her.  He pulled off his gloves and then interlocked his hands in front of him, speaking quietly with an impassive expression.  
  
“What?”  
  
“You were going to ask me when I was shot with an arrow.  It was 1816.  I was mistaken for a poacher by a land owner who assumed I was after his pheasants.”  
  
He was smiling now; of all things, he was smiling at the remembrance of being shot through the chest with an arrow, like he was telling her another amusing anecdote about Abe’s childhood.  
  
“Do you just…find it funny?”  
  
“Certainly not at the time.  I’ve had some time to find the humour in the situation.  I don’t even like pheasant.  Too gamey.”  
  
She knew he was purposefully keeping it light, though she didn’t know whether it was for her sake or himself, and she tried to match the spirit of it despite the faint nausea starting to tug at her stomach.  
  
“And I thought your sense of humour was dark before.”  
  
“A man has to have hobbies.”  
  
She looked down at the body again.  Shot through the heart, and Henry called him lucky.    
  
When she looked back at Henry, he was watching her.  He had a streak of mud along his cheek, and Jo reached out to swipe at it with her fingers, partially succeeding in removing it.  Like when she’d put her fingers in his hair to feel for a bullet hole, he patiently waited out the motion, watching her hand from the corner of his eye.  He smiled lightly when she held up her hand to show the mud she’d wiped away.  
  
“Thank you.”  
  
She rubbed the grainy mud between her fingers, considering him carefully.  One story—any one, she could take her pick of what he’d told her—was more than a person should have to deal with in a lifetime.  Yet he always seemed to have another tucked away.  
  
“Henry, how are you not totally insane?”  
  
“I’ve had my moments,” he chuckled.  
  
The amusement dropped away when he saw Jo didn’t find it near as funny as he did. She could see past the joke to the truth.  There was truth behind all his words, piles and piles of truth.  He pressed his lips together, avoiding her gaze.  
  
“Once I have the arrow head removed from the victim, I’ll be able to give you more information to identify it and give you a lead on where it came from.  If you’ll excuse me.”  
  
He turned and walked away to arrange the body’s transport to the morgue.  Jo stared down at the body near her wet, muddy feet, imaging Henry lying there with an arrow sticking out of his chest.    
  
Forget flickering neon, it was like trying to ignore a citywide power brown-out.    
  
  
  
***  
  
  
Henry made a quick stop at home to wash up and change into fresh clothes before returning to the morgue to meet the body of their victim.  He let his thoughts free on the ballistics of the arrows, speculating on their point of origin, given their angle of entry into the wet earth and the man’s chest.    
  
He refused to think of Jo, of her concern.  He should have kept his mouth shut, not tried to explain, leaving her to think—  
  
He shut off the thought, redirecting his attention back to the case.  He had plenty to keep him busy and occupied.  No need to let his thoughts wander.  Task at hand.    
  
He hadn’t expected anything different.  Jo was a professional, and her return to crime scene work—however unexpected today’s appearance was, though he should have known she wouldn’t wait out a week of desk duty—was as to be expected.  
  
In the future, he wouldn’t volunteer any unnecessary information.  No reason to.  Her look of horror was well to be avoided.  He’d taken too much for granted, assumed a comfort that wasn’t there.  He’d—  
  
He firmly reset his thoughts again before they drifted further.    
  
Lucas had the body prepped and ready to go for him by the time he arrived.  He put on his lab coat and apron, gloved up, and began the familiar job of opening the chest cavity.   Repetition and routine, the bread and butter of his survival.  
  
He pulled the arrowhead out carefully.  Sharp, heavy; definitely more than for target practice or archery.  This was a hunter’s weapon.  His chest ached in sympathy for the poor bastard on the table.  At least it had been a quick death for this man, and no two day crawl through the bush avoiding an angry lord and his entourage until the end finally came.  
  
“His name’s Andrew Lotnick.”  
  
Henry looked up at the voice to find Jo entering the lab, notepad in hand.  There went his concentration.  She waved her notepad a little as she continued speaking.    
  
“He was a hunter who ran northern wilderness hunting trips for clients with lots of money to spend.”  
  
She came to a halt on the opposite side of the slab and smiled at him hesitantly.  He marshalled his thoughts and straightened up, returning her subtle greeting with a polite nod.  
  
“That certainly narrows down the suspect list,”  Henry said.  He brandished the bloody arrow at her.  It had three razor-sharp blades tapering to its tip, forming the head.  “And makes this sensible.  This is for big game; and, if I’m not mistaken, a design that’s illegal in this country.”  
  
“That should make tracking down the buyer easier as well.”  She tucked the notepad into her pocket as Henry set the arrow head into the tray for photographing and evidence preservation.  “Hanson’s already on his way to talk to family, but Lotnick’s got an office uptown.  You want to come?”  
  
He stopped, pausing in the midst of removing his bloodied blue gloves.  Her tone was mild, her body language open.  No folded arms, no cautious defensiveness like when she’d arrived at his door last week for dinner, chin buried in the upturned collar of her coat.  None of the vaguely masked horror and pity from the crime scene as she looked through his words into his past, clearly seeing the lost years he tried to forget, when he’d have given anything for an end, spending his efforts doing everything he could to obliterate himself—and then his mind, if not his body.  
  
She cocked her head to the side at his silent inspection.  
  
“Did you think I was going to drop you?” she asked quietly.  
  
He considered lying, but she’d see through it.  She had him pegged rather efficiently, and she knew he had every reason to assume she would keep her distance from him.  It was down to whatever conclusions she’d arrived at in the privacy of her own thoughts that allowed him the continued grace of her partnership.  
  
“It had crossed my mind.”  
  
“We still work well together.”  She paused.  “I hope, anyway.”  
  
“I’d like to think so.”   A faint flutter of hope warmed him.  
  
She nodded firmly, then smiled at him, and he found it much easier to return it.  
  
“Alright then,” she said.  “Let’s go visit some big game hunters.”  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
As intimidating as having a gun pulled on him was, Henry would have to say a crossbow was a hell of a lot more frightening.    
  
He and Jo pressed their backs to the corridor wall, trying to keep their breathing quiet.  This was not how he’d expected his first day back in the field to go.  
  
Finding their suspect hadn’t been hard.  Lotnick’s business partner, Wilstone, had lost his composure almost as soon as they showed.  He must have been on the edge of losing it, mentally unstable either before Lotnick’s murder, or as a result of it, Henry couldn’t tell.  Wilstone ran from them at the first flash of Jo’s badge, grabbing the crossbow he’d stashed in his office and burying a razor-tipped arrow into the wall as Henry and Jo made a dash for it and the office staff fled in terror.  
  
A soft step from around the corner gave away Wilstone’s position, the faintest slip of dress shoes on office carpeting.    
  
Henry gulped a deep breath, eyeing the stairwell.  Thirty feet distant, approximately.  Wilstone would be forced to put his back to their current position if Henry made it that far, giving Jo an opening to disarm him.    
  
Henry leaned over to whisper in Jo’s ear.  
  
“I’ll draw his fire, distract him, lure him out.”  
  
“No,” she hissed, glaring at him.  “Absolutely not.”  
  
He tried to stay patient and reasonable, though his heart was racing.  Immortal he might be, but Henry had learned long ago he was a man who’d rather run than throw himself into a fight.  Needs must, however.  Better him than Jo.  
  
“Jo, he’s not going to stand down.  We’ve tried.  We can’t make the stairs without crossing the foyer, and we’ll be exposed there.  He’s already proven himself an excellent shot.”  He took another slow breath to centre himself, then put a hand on her arm, trying to reassure her, to remind her of what she already knew.  “You know this makes sense.  He can’t hurt me.  You can take him down while his attention is on me.”  
  
“He _can_ hurt you, Henry.”  
  
“Not permanently.  Get ready.”    
  
He steeled himself.  Another whisper-soft footfall, and he was about to make a run for it when Jo hooked him by the back of the collar and yanked him back, nearly throttling him.  She pushed him against the wall and trapped him there with her forearm hard against his chest, her full weight behind it.  Her expression was furious.  
  
“I said _no_.”  
  
He tried to push off the wall but she shoved him back hard, rattling his teeth.  
  
“Jo—“  
  
“ _Stop it_.”    
  
A flash of movement to their left at the corridor junction, and Henry barely had time to call out a warning before Wilstone was lining up his shot.  Jo’s gun was up in one smooth movement as at the same time she pulled Henry down to the ground with her.  The shot rang loud in Henry’s ear, and the snap of the crossbow was a dull, barely heard thud afterward. Henry and Jo hit the floor hard.  
  
Henry rolled, scrambling for Jo, unable to see her front as she’d fallen on her side facing away from him.  He pulled at her arm to roll her towards him.  
  
“Jo?  Jo!  Are you hurt?  Jo!”  
  
“I’m fine,” she grunted, rolling onto her back.  “It’s okay, he missed.”  
  
He gasped in relief, looking up behind them to see the arrow embedded in the corridor wall some twenty feet distant.  
  
Wilstone groaned.  Jo leapt to her feet and advanced on him, gun ready once more, but he was down.  Bullet through the shoulder, crossbow knocked out of reach.  Henry ran to follow, legs shaking with adrenaline.  Wilstone was in a bad way, bleeding profusely, and Henry pulled off his scarf and wadded it up to stem the flow.  
  
“He’ll need an ambulance immediately,” Henry said to Jo.  He pressed hard, and Wilstone writhed beneath him at the pain, unable to do more than moan.  
  
She holstered her gun and reached for her cell phone, staring Henry down as she dialled 911.  He shoved away his concern and concentrated on keeping Wilstone from bleeding to death, his ears ringing from the shot.  
  
Wilstone was unconscious but alive when the ambulance crew arrived, uniformed police not far behind to secure the area and gather up the evidence.  Jo communed with them while Henry gave his statement.    
  
He let the ambulance crew bag his ruined scarf along with other hazardous waste for disposal.  His suit would need some love to get the blood out, but might yet be salvaged.  A bad day for his wardrobe retention, but a pleasant change from it disappearing entirely.  
  
Jo was ominously silent when she returned to Henry, her jaw muscles clenched tight the entire walk to her car.  Henry got in and buckled himself as Jo threw the car into drive with unnecessary force and pulled them out of the parking garage.  They were three blocks along before Henry couldn’t take the silence any longer.  
  
“You’re upset with me.”  
  
“You think?”  Jo’s knuckles were white wrapped around the steering wheel.    
  
“I’m sorry, Jo, but—“  
  
“So tell me this,” she interrupted, “along with this reincarnation business, do you not feel any pain?  Injuries don’t hurt?”  
  
He kneaded his hands together.  They were raw with the harsh alcohol he’d used to clean off the blood.    
  
“I’m the same as everyone else in that respect.”  
  
“I’d think being shot with an arrow once in your lifetime would be enough for you.”  She glared at him from the corner of her eye before refocusing on the road.  “For a guy who’s so concerned about keeping his immortality a secret, you sure spend a lot of your time trying to die.  Collapsing buildings, crossbows.  God, what else have you done?”  She was silent for a moment, and then snapped her fingers, mocking surprise taking over her tone.  “Oh right, climbed a bridge in the middle of the night looking for evidence.  Ran after a perp who was shooting at us.  Am I forgetting anything?  Anything I don’t know about that you haven’t mentioned?”  
  
His stomach sank like a stone.  The memory of Bentley’s knife sliding into his back made him shift in his seat.  Then, the familiar echo of Jo’s pained cries as he’d shot himself whispered in his ear.  But this situation was different from those, nothing like the flamboyant risks he was willing to admit he’d taken.    
  
“It would have worked—I could have drawn his fire.”  When she didn’t respond he continued, hoping to garner her understanding.  “You are the one who was in danger, not me.”    
  
“This is my job.”  
  
“But you, Jo, _can_ die.   _Actually_ die.  I can’t.  If I can spare you the risk, I will.”  
  
Her sidelong look towards him was dark with fury.  
  
“I’m a police officer.  I’m trained for this job, and I don’t care if you’re immortal, unless you spent a few decades on the force and forgot to mention it, you are not.  Jesus, Henry, half the time you make things worse.”  
  
His jaw dropped in indignant offence.  
  
“I do not—“  
  
“Okay, for example, at the college, the jumper case? Do you think I’d have had to shoot that guy if you hadn’t thrown yourself in the way, rushing into a situation without thinking?  Getting yourself into a position with a knife to your throat, when you could have told me, let me handle it properly?”  
  
He had no rebuttal.  He had a sudden need to be out of this situation, but he was trapped in the moving car with her frustration and lectures, and he had no desire to argue with her.  What seemed simple to him made no sense to her, and he doubted he could make her understand he’d far rather bear the physical pain than the fear of losing her.  He’d almost done it once, and he couldn’t bear it again.  He rubbed his fingers against his temples, seeking patience and calm, trying to accept that they’d likely never reach that understanding.  Neither Abigail nor Abe had ever been able to set aside their feelings on the matter, to realize their lives were far more precious to him than anything that could happen to him.  
  
“Henry, I cannot believe you are over two hundred years old.  You are such an idiot sometimes.”  
  
“Abe tells me this often,” he joked weakly, hoping to diffuse her temper.    
  
“Doesn’t seem like you listen.”  She repositioned her hands and took a deep breath.  She blinked hard and cleared her throat before she spoke.  “You know what sucks?   Watching you die.  As far as I can tell, you still actually do it, and it’s real, so we’re gonna have this conversation once, and that’s it.  You don’t try and get yourself killed, or hurt, or whatever.  When we’re in the field you listen to me, and you respect my decisions.  If you’ve got something to offer, you tell me.  You don’t run off and take things into your own hands.  I have training for this, you don’t.  We clear?”  
  
He dropped his hands to his lap and leaned his head back against the head rest.  He didn’t want it to be like this.    
  
But she hadn’t outright banned him from coming with her again, so perhaps it was salvageable.    
  
“Clear.”  
  
She glanced over at him again with deep lines between her drawn brows.  
  
“Damn it, Henry.”  She reached over and caught one of his hands, lacing her fingers in his and squeezing tight.    
  
She was determinedly focused on driving, but her thumb worried over the heel of his hand.  He brought his other hand over to hold hers between his, stilling the motion.  She glanced over at him again and her expression had softened, her eyes large and concerned.    
  
“I’m sorry,” he said sincerely.  
  
She drew a deep breath and let it out in a rush.    
  
“Okay.”  She smiled briefly, then with a last squeeze of her fingers pulled her hand free of his and returned it to the steering wheel.  “Besides, I don’t need you taking off because you did something stupid like get yourself killed in front of witnesses.”  
  
He relaxed back into his seat, trying to put his composure back in place, slipping back into the comfortable bounds of their partnership.    
  
“I won’t.  I quite like my life here.”  
  
“Then try to make it last, okay?”  
  
He nodded.    
  
“I’ll try.”  
  
  
***  
  
  
_**Poland, 1945**_  
  
  
_Henry stood with Abigail outside the hospital, hand in hand.  Their shift was finally done, the brief nap in the hallway restoring them enough for the walk back to barracks.  They had just enough time to rest before it all began again tomorrow._  
  
_The sky was clear, and the night was alive with stars.  Henry drifted to a halt and stared up into the dark, at the countless pinpricks.  It was disorienting how much had happened in the space of so short a time.  The wind was fresh from the river, chasing away the smell of gasoline and oil, and the medical camp’s lingering odour of too many people living too close together.  He felt like he could drift away, and it was only Abigail’s hand in his that kept him from doing so._  
  
_He looked back to her, only to find her eyes were brimming with tears as she watched him.  He frowned in concern and wiped his thumb over her cheek gently when a tear spilled over._  
  
_“What is it?” he asked.  “Tell me.”_  
  
_“It’s hurts, doesn’t it?”_  
  
_“What does?”_  
  
_“Dying.  When you die, it hurts.”_  
  
_He didn’t want to answer her, but she knew the obvious truth.  She’d held him as he bled out, pressed her hands into the wound, seen him choking on the pain.  He said nothing and instead chased another escaping tear, smiling softly and with as much reassurance as he could manage._  
  
_“Just promise me,” she whispered.  “Promise me you won’t do it again.  Won’t die again.”_  
  
_He was at a loss for how to answer her.  Could he promise such a thing?  He certainly could try, but it seemed disingenuous to promise her a thing he wasn’t sure he could help.  They were in a war zone; death was a fact for many of them—even if only Henry could dodge its ultimate effect._  
  
_“I don’t know if I can,” he answered honestly._  
  
_She closed her eyes and her tears fell.  He leaned in to kiss her, and her lips were trembling._  
  
_“I can’t bear to see you hurt like that,” she said when he pulled away.  “Please.”_  
  
_He didn’t know what to say, but her plea was so earnest, so heartfelt, that he nodded._  
  
_“I’ll try, Abigail.  I’ll try.”_  
  
  
***  
  
  
And try he did.  For Jo’s sake, for her peace of mind—and yes, a little bit because she was right—Henry tried to modify his behaviour.  He hadn’t realized how far he’d stepped outside the bounds of normal self-preservation in the course of his partnership with her.    
  
He didn’t like dying; he had no reason or desire to seek it out, and yet in the past year he’d died more than in the previous twenty.  It was influencing him in strange ways, making him increasingly reckless in a downward spiral.  Working with people who continuously put themselves at risk had affected him.  
  
In some ways, it reminded him of the wars.  He was surrounded by people who put themselves in the line of fire for something they believed in, for laws and codes, with a superhuman belief that they’d survive each experience.  All while Henry stood to the side and watched them fall.  He’d been reckless then, too.  Reckless, and yet determined to stay.    
  
He’d fallen in love then, too.  
  
With that last thought tripping through his mind, he pressed his face to the concrete floor, using all his willpower to lie still behind the crates and stay put where Jo had told him to before she’d made a dash out into the open to go back up Hanson.  
  
He nearly followed her half a dozen times, resorted to biting the inside of his cheek and counting the number of footsteps he heard echoing in the building, mapping the location of each person in his mind, until Jo reappeared at his side when the all-clear was being shouted through the warehouse.    
  
She offered him her hand and he took it, pulling himself up to stand.  He held onto it, grateful to see her in one piece, and she bumped him lightly in the chest with her free hand curled into a fist, a wide grin on her face.  
  
“Told you.  We do okay, us mortals.”  
  
He let out his breath in a rush, relieved laughter spilling out with it, tempted to pull her into a hug but settled for clutching her hand tighter.  
  
“Don’t make a habit of it,” he said.  
  
“I won’t.”  
  
“We got the guy locked down,”  Hanson said, approaching them.  He looked them both over quickly, then back to Jo.  “If you’re ready.”  
  
Jo pulled her hand free from Henry’s and nodded.  
  
“Yeah, be right there.”  
  
Hanson headed back to the flashing lights of the squad cars and Henry returned his attention to Jo.  She was sweating and amped up from their success, her hair damp and curling against her temples, cheeks flushed from the chase.  She jerked her head towards the waiting cars.  
  
“C’mon, I’ll buy you a shawarma on the way home.”  
  
“If that’s anything like your usual stakeout food, I’ll pass.”  
  
She smiled warmly and linked her arm in his.  
  
“Kidding, Henry.”  
  
He let her pull him along to the car and tried to breathe easy.  She was alive, they were all fine, and there was no reason to hold onto his irrationally lingering fear.  He indulged himself and covered her hand on his arm with his own, gripping the back of her hand tight.  She didn’t withdraw at his unnecessary touch, but let him soothe himself.    
  
Whatever balance they were finding between them, she did not seem to begrudge him his attachment to her.  
  
That was enough.  



	8. Chapter 8

Jo yawned, rubbing sleep from her eyes as she soldiered through the drive to work in morning rush hour, wishing she’d had time to pick up a coffee. As it was, she was running later than she meant to be. Too many late nights, not enough sleep.

She repositioned her hand around the steering wheel and her eye caught again on her bare finger. Her hand fluttered to her throat, to the empty space there as well. She’d taken it off her finger not long after Sean’s death, but today was the first day she’d left it at home on the bedside table instead of wearing it. There hadn’t been a special reason or decision. She’d rolled out of bed, brushed her teeth, and it wasn’t until she was leaving the house she realized she’d left it behind. But she’d decided not to go back for it.

She felt naked without it. And yet, somehow, lighter.

Her cell rang just as she stopped at the red light, headed for the precinct in the middle of morning rush hour, and she picked up, flipping it to speakerphone, noting Hanson’s number as she did so.

“What’s up?”

“Someone called in a body—apartment building in the East Village, 10th and Loisaida. I’m already on the way. Want to meet me there?”

“Yeah, sure. You called in Henry already?”

“Not yet, I just got the message.”

“I’ll swing by there and pick him up, he probably hasn’t left yet.”

“Sounds good. See you.”

She disconnected the call just as the cars started moving ahead of her, and switched lanes to take her over towards Stanton and down towards Henry’s place. In minutes she pulled up to the curb and parked. She buzzed the call bell by the door to the antiques shop.

It took a minute before Abe appeared in the doorway leading to the upstairs apartment, and his face lit up and he waved as he spotted her. He unlocked the door, and without preamble pulled her into a hug.

“Jo! How ya doing?”

The warmth of his greeting was comforting, and she wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tight for an extra moment, feeling a smile already tugging at her. She’d snuck in a few visits with Abe over the past weeks since dinner at his place, unwilling to lose her unexpected friendship with him in her effort to put a little professional distance between her and Henry.

Not that she was doing such a great job at that professional distance lately. She was the one who’d suggested they grab dinner after the case that ran late, that had left Henry lying on the ground looking like he was going to eat the concrete if he had to stay there another second. They’d ended up walking afterward, talking for hours about everything under the sun, about their respective honeymoon trips—and where the hell Urkesh was, she still had no idea, but leave it to Henry to end up operating on a prince on his honeymoon—and about Sean’s last night at home.

She’d never told anyone about the guilt dogging her over that last argument, and yet out it had come, along with a few tears, like Catholic confession from her youth; about the apology she’d never get to offer, about the anger left between them instead of love. Instead of the judgment and penance she’d felt like she’d deserved, Henry had looked at her with utter confidence, such unshakeable knowledge, and told her what she needed to know, with unerring accuracy:

_“You were in love, Jo. He knew.”_

They’d sat for a while together, finishing their coffees, before they’d said a goodnight to each other and she’d gone home to be alone with her thoughts, comforted by the remembrance that love was more than the words you said, but your actions every day.

She was brought back to the here and now when Abe gave her a quick peck on the cheek and patted her shoulders, his eyes crinkled up with his smile.

“Just stopping by? Want some coffee?”

“No, I actually came on business this time. Is Henry still here? I was hoping to grab him for a crime scene.”

“He stepped out to pick up some pastries for breakfast, but he’ll be back in a few. Sure I can’t tempt you?”

“I’m dying for one, actually,” she confessed. “That’d be great.”

“Yeah, I can tell that look,” Abe said, waving a finger around to indicate her expression. “I’ve seen that enough times after Henry came off the ER shift back when he worked in the hospital.”

“What, he was an emergency room doctor too?” She followed Abe towards the back of the shop as he talked.

“Ah, you know how it is—you think you’ve got the picture, and then he’s got one more story tucked away. I swear he saves them up just so he can keep us guessing.” Abe started grinding up beans for the espresso machine, speaking over the roar. “He likes to think he’s a great big man of mystery, but he’s not that hard to figure out.”

“I don’t think I’ve got him pegged yet.” She curled her feet under her chair. “He still surprises me.”

Abe looked over his shoulder at her with a mischievous look as the espresso machine hissed and whirred.

“Oh, I dunno. I think you’ve got him figured out pretty good. He sure jumps when you call.”

She didn’t have an answer for that, and instead thanked him profusely when he set the espresso down in front of her, grateful for the caffeine.

“So where you off to this morning? What neighbourhood has been brought low by the scum of our fine city?”

She told him, and Abe sat back in his chair with a low whistle of surprise, and then a fond shake of his head.

“Not too far from home. You know we used to live up that way—block from there, when I was fifteen. Right after we got back from Amsterdam.”

“Amsterdam? How did you end up there?”

Abe grimaced.

“Little bit of running from Henry’s past,” Abe admitted. “We took off for a while. We were there about five years, until Mom and him figured the heat had settled.”

Jo sipped her coffee, soaking in the information. Abe was much more forthcoming about the realities of the past than Henry could be. Since the incident with the crossbow, Henry tended to avoid anything but the lighter anecdotes, the stories that focused on the changing world, rather than the role he’d played in it.

She couldn’t resist prying for the more personal side of his life—Henry took it all with good nature, though she was starting to see his artful dodges, the way he slid past things without making a big deal of it, the smooth shifts of topic away from his thoughts.

It only made her more curious—and a little hurt. Her brief moment of belonging in Henry’s life had been closed, and he’d withdrawn again.

Though the curiosity burned at her daily, she knew there was only so much she could ask Henry before she felt like she was harassing him. Abe was her only willing source.

“So, honestly, what was it like having Henry around your whole life? Was it weird—the whole aging thing, when he started looking younger than you?” Abe looked at her carefully for a moment, and she realized that perhaps she’d hit a sensitive topic and she winced. “Sorry if that was over the line.”

“Nah, don’t be silly,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I told you, you can ask.” He sighed, pressing his lips in a thin line, looking down at the floor thoughtfully before he answered. “You want the honest to god truth? It was great. _Is_ great.”

She hadn’t expected the answer, and when Abe smiled in amusement at her surprise, she realized it was a little too obvious.

“I know, it seems easy to focus on the hard stuff. God knows Henry does, more than he should. But here’s the thing.” Abe leaned closer to her and patted her on the knee, then held up a finger and tilted his chin down to look over his glasses at her with a serious expression. “That guy has been with me through thick and thin, and how many people get that from their folks? He was there through my divorce—both of them. He might not have liked it, but he helped me clean up my messes. And even though he was his own special kind of disaster after Mom left and he was out of the country, he still kept in touch with me, and took up the other end of the antiques business in London to help me out. You know half my stock was stuff he’d squirrelled away over the years, and he just gave it to me? Just like that. I don’t care what he looks like on the outside, that man has a bigger heart than anyone I’ve ever met. I’m damned lucky he’s around—the immortality doesn’t play into it at all. It’s just who he is.”

Jo was tongue-tied at Abe’s heartfelt expression, and she was a little ashamed for expecting salacious details about all the hard stuff, as Abe put it. She hadn’t even thought about the fact that Henry had literally been the same loving father for Abe’s whole life. That sounded like Henry, sticking with someone he cared about. He’d already proven himself a loyal and caring friend to her a thousand times over.

Hell, he’d risked everything for her, and she’d barely known how to thank him for that. She lowered her gaze to her lap. Perhaps she’d become too focused on what made Henry different. It was easier than seeing all the ways in which they were the same—all the things she found comforting, all the ways in which he made her happier, and closer to life than she had in a long time.

“But I tell you, the first time a woman I was interested in asked me if Henry was single, I almost lost it. Now there’s a blow to the ego, losing a girl to your dad.”

She burst out laughing, and Abe’s friendly chuckle eased the mood again.

“I bet the two of you cut a swath through the ladies of New York,” Jo teased gently.

“Haven’t stopped yet, thank you very much,” Abe sniffed, standing to collect her now empty espresso cup. “I might not have that immortal charm going for me, but I do alright.”

“I’m sure you do,” she said, holding up a hand to stop any further stories. “And that’s all I need to know, thanks.”

“I bet you do okay too, hm? I promise you, if I were thirty years younger…” Jo snorted with laughter, and Abe winked.

“No, I think the men are safe,” she said with a shake of her head, but the levity was a little hard to keep up, the topic cutting a little too close to home. “I, uh. Not really in the game anymore. Married young, and…” She trailed off, not wanting to finish the thought.

“And?”

The twitch in her hand to touch the ring was there, but she quickly suppressed it. There was nothing to find now. While she’d had a thing here and there with men, something quick just to pretend she wasn’t alone…

“I think I’m done.”

Abe paused as he took in her words, then set the cups down and folded his arms, perching on the edge of the desk.

“Been a while since he passed?”

Long enough that the sound of his voice didn’t come as easily anymore, his smile frozen in snapshots, no longer easily brought to life in her memories. When she closed her eyes and tried to call him to mind it was like she was seeing him through layers of foggy glass. Sean was becoming a memory.

It was normal. Healthy, even. But it still startled her to realize how far she’d come. Whether she wanted it or not, she was drifting away from that part of her life.

“Yeah, I suppose it has.” Abe’s gaze was paternal and fond, and she shrugged. “It was good while it lasted.”

Abe nodded, and moved to settle back into the chair opposite her. He sighed heavily and then crossed his arms, levelling her with a serious gaze.

“I’ll tell you the same thing I tell Henry all the time—just because one part of your life ends doesn’t mean your life is over. You spend all your time thinking about what you’ve lost, and you’ll never see all the things you have right in front of you. You can’t let life slide by, no matter how many years you get, and that goes doubly for us mortals. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned from Henry, it’s that you’ll always regret what you didn’t do more than what you did.”

His meaning was transparent, and much as it brought on a ripple of nerves that went down her to her bones, she knew what he was saying—about her, about Henry, about both of them. But, she wasn’t sure if she was ready to move on yet, or even if she knew how.

What scared her more was wondering if she already had, and she hadn’t noticed.

Abe’s eyes flickered up over her shoulder and he raised an eyebrow.

“Ah, there’s Henry now.” He glanced back at Jo. “You okay, kid?”

“Yeah, fine.”

He gave her a dubious look, and she waved it away. It was all they had time for before the door jingled and Henry was inside, clutching a little paper bakery bag.

“Detective! An unexpected pleasure.”

Jo stood to turn and meet him, tucking her hands in her jacket pockets.

“Hey Henry. Sorry to parachute in. Was hoping you’d be up for an early morning crime scene. Thought I could snag you before you head into work.”

“Yes, of course. Let me pop these upstairs.”

“Ah, take ‘em with you. You’ll need the energy,” Abe said. “Go on, go save the city from the dirtbags.”

Henry grinned at Abe and nodded.

“Very well, thank you for your sacrifice.” He turned to Jo and gestured to the door. “Shall we?”

Jo nodded, but she turned back to Abe and kissed him on the cheek as a goodbye before leaving.

“Thanks for the coffee. And the chat.”

“Any time,” Abe said, a twinkle in his eye. “Don’t be a stranger.”

“I won’t.”

She ignored Henry’s curious look as they left, instead offering him the crime scene address and seeing his face light up.

“Oh! We used to live a block from there—“

“Yep, Abe told me. But what I want to know is what it was like to live in Amsterdam in the Fifties.”

Henry’s eyebrows shot up, and she felt a sense of victory at being able to catch him off-guard for once, hoping his surprise might knock a bit of truth out of him. His mouth twisted in a wry smile and he narrowed his eyes when he saw her gleeful reaction.

“Hm, Abraham has gotten quite chatty in his old age,” Henry said dryly. “Well if you must know, it was a fair bit different than it is now.”

Henry nattered on about stories of post-war Europe for the rest of the car ride to the scene.

 

***

 

In the car on their way to the crime scene as they shared the fresh, still warm croissants, Henry filled Jo’s ear with stories of Amsterdam, of learning a new language alongside his family, of a country digging itself out from under the memories of war, the beauty of cobblestone, and market carts lining the streets—not unlike New Amsterdam, or Manhattan as it once had been.

“So Abe didn’t go into too many details, but what made you guys make the move over there?”

Henry paused; he didn’t want to bring in the negative side of it, the midnight packing, the throttling fear and guilt as they stood in the airport, Abe red-faced and spitting angry at leaving, refusing to speak to Henry and Abigail at all as he stood as far from them as he could manage.

As she eased into the balance of holding the secret of his immortality, Jo’s discomfort had waned. She seemed willing—even eager—to know more about him and his life. At first he’d felt reluctant, but she’d softened him up quite efficiently, pulling bits of himself out that he’d forgotten existed. Even so, he didn’t want to burden her with too much. He worked hard to avoid anything that could bring on that dark, complex expression she’d given him when they’d stood over the arrow-riddled body. He didn’t want her pity, any more than he wanted her fear.

That, and every day the distance she wanted between them was harder to maintain. He already spent too much time with her occupying his thoughts. He had to hold some of himself back, if he were to make this work. It was far too easy to lean on her.

“Someone I’d known from a previous life. He was a little too insistent, and I didn’t want trouble.” He smiled brightly, quickly moving past his glib answer. “But it had been time for a change anyway. Abe became quite good at Dutch. Though he’ll deny it, he still is.”

Jo looked at him from the corner of her eye.

“That happen often? Running into people you used to know?”

“No.”

And that, thankfully, was very true. He varied his appearance enough over the years that though he’d had one or two confused looks, he’d easily dodged out of the situation before it came to recognition and exposure, able to change his daily routes and patterns to avoid confrontation. He avoided close connections to prevent too many personal encounters.

He was failing at that with spectacular regularity these days. Perhaps he was getting sentimental in his old age. Or lonely.

He took the last bite of his croissant, wiping off his fingers on the paper napkin before returning it to the bag. He was in an unusually melancholy mood this morning.

“Hm.”

He looked over at Jo, at the faint smirk teasing the corner of her mouth, and raised an eyebrow in askance.

“What?”

“Nothing. Just making a mental note to ask Abe for the full story later. _He_ gives me a straight answer when I ask.”

He was caught between amusement and offence at her comment and made a small noise of protest, but his pleasure over the bond she and Abraham had between them interfered with any real irritation. Perhaps it was formed in solidarity with being forced to put up with him—he couldn’t particularly blame them, he imagined he was a bit of a trial at times, always a step out of synch with the world. Always asking their silence, with little to offer them in return other than his gratitude. It seemed a poor return for their confidence and support.

When returning from the bakery he’d spotted them talking and paused just out of sight at the corner of the window, watching as they laughed and joked together. Something about the ease of their body language reminded him of the moments when he’d walk in on Abigail and Abe chatting away, a conspiratorial air about them, mischief sparkling in their eyes when they looked over at him. They’d been trouble, the two of them together, both with a key to his heart, and how he’d dearly loved every minute of it.

Abe had welcomed Jo into their family. From now on, she’d always have a place in both of their lives. There’d be a space he would never adequately fill again once she left.

The reminder cut deep, and he looked away out the window to avoid giving any of the thought away to Jo. He’d never meant to let this happen. It terrified him to know he’d done this again to himself. But it was already done; in so short a time Jo had cemented herself as someone he relied on, valued, and cared for.

They were friends, and colleagues, and she seemed content to carry on as such, accept him as he was. She was friends with Abraham. He had to be content with that, for it was more than he’d ever thought he’d have in his life here. He would work to embrace what he had, rather than grieve what he didn’t. Perhaps it was finally the time in his long life to learn this skill.

“We’re here,” Jo said, and the engine cut.

Best to try and shake the mood off. The crime scene would be diverting enough to keep him from dwelling. Henry cast away the last of his reverie and climbed out of the car, looking around his old neighbourhood with a wistful remembrance of how it had been decades past. So many memories in this city.

“Look a lot different?” she asked, and he shook his head.

“In some sense, no. Not all the buildings around here have been preserved,” he said, waving a hand down the row of apartments, “but the feel has stayed the same. Change up the cars out front, and it could have been then.”

He gazed down the street, at the memories superimposing themselves over current day, until a gentle hand on his shoulder brought him back to the present. Jo’s smile was warm and teasing, and he shared the chuckle at his own expense. He was terribly scattered when he let himself drift down memory lane.

“Come on, Hanson texted and said he’s already inside.”

They trotted up the front steps, ducking under yellow caution tape and past two uniformed officers, Jo flashing her badge to them as she went, and Henry followed her up. Jo was finishing her croissant as they went into the third floor apartment, which was buzzing with the crime scene team, and Hanson spotted the last of it disappearing into her mouth as he turned around to greet them.

“Hey, you better have brought one of those for me,” he groused.

“Blame Henry, he only bought two,” Jo pointed at him, talking around the mouthful, but then she looked past Hanson towards the kitchen counter and choked before managing to swallow. “Oh my god, what happened here?”

“Well, we’re still looking for the other half,” Hanson said as Jo went to the bottom half of the body lying on the counter, perfectly bisected at the waist. “We know it’s a dude, but that’s about all we’ve got so far given that we, uh, haven’t got much else to go on.”

Henry’s curiosity was piqued. He grabbed a pair of gloves from the crime scene investigation unit and pulled them on, eyeing the half-corpse as he did. Hanson sidled up next to him and leaned over, speaking quietly.

“Next time you buy the lady breakfast, think of all us poor guys and bring a few extra, would you?”

Henry raised an eyebrow. Hanson’s tone suggested more than a plea for breakfast.

“She lucked into Abe’s breakfast, I’m afraid. No slight intended, Detective.”

“Hm, right,” Hanson said diffidently.

Henry gave him a look over, and though he had adopted a bland expression, his amusement was still clear—

Ah. Hanson suspected Jo had been at Henry’s home from the start, having spent the night. Henry was unable to suppress his grin. He shook his head and rolled his eyes, turning purposefully from Hanson and his glee to head towards their victim—or what there was of him. People would never change; a bit of salacious gossip and they would turn up at the ready to learn as much as they could. Even Detective Hanson, it would seem.

“Alright, Henry. Impress us—how do you ID a body with no teeth, fingerprints, or face?”

Jo was on the other side of the counter, hands on her hips and staring down at the macabre scene, and when she spotted his amused look she gave him a curious look. He shook his head to indicate it was nothing and gestured instead to the body.

“We still have a number of avenues available to us. Injuries, tattoos, drug use—“

“Found the top half!” came a cry from the hallway. “Next floor up!”

“—Or take a look at the other half,” Henry continued smoothly.

Jo snorted with laughter and then hooked a hand around his arm as she crossed around the counter, pulling him until he followed.

“Well then, let’s go check it out.”

 

***

 

_**Poland, 1945** _

_They were being recalled, the clean-up efforts drawing to a close, and medical personnel being shuffled back to their respective countries. He sat with Abigail that night, arm around her, both of them huddled against the chill but unwilling to break the stillness._

_“I’ve always wanted to see America,” Abigail finally said, swinging her feet beneath the bench outside the mess hall. “And I could help you with Abraham.”_

_The little baby had wrapped his hand around Henry’s heart, and in the end he couldn’t bear to see the child go to an orphanage. He’d signed the papers that morning, and while it was unusual for a single man to take on a young baby, no one who had seen them together raised an objection. And, he guessed, many assumed that it was only a matter of time before he took Abigail as a wife._

_People would talk, even if they didn’t know what they talked of. They always did, and probably always would._

_Henry didn’t know what to do. He didn’t want to let her go, but he knew it had to end sometime. Perhaps now was the least cruel, for both of them—parted by circumstances rather than by choice._

_But he wasn’t ready to make the decision, and quietly kissed her on the head, holding her close._

_The decision had to be made, whether he liked it or not._

 

***

 

Jo’s ears were still ringing when she made it out to the deck from the shrieking cries of Hanson’s boys as they flew around the house, bouncing off the walls with excitement at their after-dinner free time while the adults talked. Finally Hanson had sent her outside so he could wrangle them—a process which seemed to involve a lot of shouting on all sides.

Hanson’s house was a noisy place; none of them talked at anything less than a bellow at home. There’d been times she’d come back from here grateful for the quiet of her empty house. It had been a long time since she’d taken them up on a dinner invite, but when Hanson asked spur of the moment and she’d accepted, the surprised look on his face made her realize just how many invites she’d turned down.

She’d enjoyed the night, finding the energy of the kids and the friendship rejuvenating. It been at least six months since she’d been here, and the boys had visibly grown. They still piled on her with hugs and kisses though, sweet and loving for all their exuberance.

Hanson collapsed into the deck chair next to Jo.

“Karen says she’s gonna put them to bed tonight. I’m gonna owe her breakfast in bed this weekend,” he groaned, and then reached over to give Jo one of the beers in his hands.

“They still put up a fight?” Jo took the beer and had a sip, settling back into her chair. The night was chilly, but the air was fresh on Hanson’s back deck, and the drinks with dinner had warmed them sufficiently to take the edge off the cold.

“You kidding? Those boys will put up a fight until the day they leave this house. Bedtime, TV, homework—you name it, they’ve got an opinion, and it’s always the opposite of ours.” Hanson took a long pull of his beer and stuck his feet out, crossing his legs at the ankles. He looked over at Jo. “Hey, thanks for coming. We missed having you over.”

“Well, thanks for the invite.” She set the beer on the arm of the deck chair. “And for not giving up on me. Told you I’d make it one day.”

“Cheers to that.” Hanson held out his beer and Jo picked hers up again, clinking the bottom of the bottle against Hanson’s.

The night was quieter out here in the suburbs, the houses falling silent in a way that her neighbourhood never did, and she relaxed into the unexpected peace of it. Even if it was a long commute, she could understand why Hanson had made the move out here when they’d had Donnie, their oldest.

“You’re not wearing your ring anymore.”

Jo’s hand automatically went to her throat at the mention, but of course, there was still an empty space at her collar. It had been three days without it, and it still felt a little strange not to feel it knocking against her breastbone whenever she moved.

“Yeah.”

“Any reason why now?”

“Not really.” She shrugged. “It was time, I guess.”

“Nothing to do with all that time you’re spending with Henry?”

Jo looked over at him, and Hanson’s eyes were wide with exaggerated innocence.

“What?”

“Come on, don’t give me that. So are you guys a couple or what? I’m dying to know.”

“No!” She frowned at the overly defensive tone of her voice, and then repeated herself more gently. “No, there’s nothing going on.”

“You mean no, not yet, or _no_ , no?” He raised his eyebrows. “Because I swear if I’ve gotta put up with many more of these crime scene deep-gaze sessions between you two, I’m gonna start carrying a squirt bottle with me.”

“Oh shut up, Mike.” She reached over and slapped him hard on the arm, and he made a show of wounded pain, laughing.

“Ah, fine, fine. Nothing going on, got it.” His laughter faded, and he leaned forward in his chair, resting his elbows on his knees as he watched her. “But seriously, you could do worse. Henry seems like a good guy,” he waved his beer bottle around, making an ambivalent noise, “underneath all the creepy stuff. Which I think I’m getting used to, so I guess he gets a pass.”

She groaned and leaned her head back against the deck chair. Abe might talk about seizing the moment and all that, and Henry was a good guy, but this wasn’t a dinner and a movie, _let’s see how it goes_ situation. There’d be no casually slipping into this.

That thought was too big to handle right now. So, she’d put it off. Probably indefinitely.

“I don’t think it’s going to happen.”

“Why not?”

“I can’t picture it.” She shrugged. “I mean…I don’t know. Hard to explain, I guess. Anyway, not happening.”

Hanson made a disapproving noise.

“I don’t think Henry knows that.”

He looked more serious than she was used to, and the uncomfortable sense of judgment in his tone rankled.

“Mike—“

“Hang on, listen for a sec.” He held up a hand and straightened in his chair, holding her eye. “I get it if you’re not up for anything serious, but you might want to cut Henry loose if that’s where it’s at. Because I get the feeling he’s waiting, and he’s got his hopes up pretty far.”

Jo turned her face away from him and looked out over the little patch of lawn littered with toys, the off-kilter badminton net with abandoned racquets nearby from the boys’ afternoon playtime. Hanson wasn’t wrong—she’d been drawing comfort from Henry without giving him anything back, relying on the stability he seemed happy to offer her, trying to have the best of both worlds and content to leave it that way so she didn’t have to make a decision. Henry being the kind of guy he was, she was pretty sure he’d wait forever, if she let him. She winced at the thought, at what that really meant for Henry. She wasn’t being fair at all.

Hanson nudged her shoulder, looking apologetic.

“Hey, I’m sorry. I’m not trying to be a jerk. I just want to see you happy. And I gotta say, you seem happier than you’ve been in a long time.”

“It’s…” Jo took a deep breath, trying to push through the thought, because she felt she owed him something, a bit of honesty. “Yeah. I guess so. I just don’t know how to do this again. I don’t know if I can.”

“Sure you can. All Sean ever wanted was for you to be happy, Jo. It’s okay for you to find someone, to live your life. He wouldn’t want you to be making yourself miserable.”

She had to wait out the lump in her throat before she could speak without sounding like she was about to cry.

“When did you decide to go all Dr. Phil, huh?” she asked lightly.

Hanson huffed a quick laugh, and then shivered.

“Brr, still too cold at night to do this. Come on, let’s head inside. Karen’s probably got those monsters safely upstairs, we can take over the living room.”

Jo nodded and followed Hanson inside, closing the patio door behind her.

She had to make some kind of decision, but she had no idea how.


	9. Chapter 9

The morgue was quiet when Jo and Hanson entered through the glass doors, most everyone else having already made their escape for the weekend by five on a Friday. Lucas and Henry were bent over the corpse at the far slab, both of them trying to finish the examination up before end of day. Henry’s call had caught them just before Hanson was packing up for the evening, so they’d popped downstairs to get the news before heading out.

If it was a lead, Jo would follow it up tomorrow. Weekends moved too slowly for her tastes anyway. Henry looked up at their footsteps and caught her eye, smiling warmly, and it was easy to return.

“Sorry to drag out your Friday, but I believe we’ve found something.”

Hanson meaningfully cleared his throat, and Jo sharply elbowed him in the ribs with a pointed jab. She wasn’t going to let Hanson get his digs in for free—even if she had found herself thinking about Henry a great deal in the last two days since her conversations with Abe and Hanson.

She’d almost called him, but in the end hadn’t been able to find a valid excuse, and wasn’t brave enough to admit she just wanted to talk to him.

Hanson snorted with laughter, and then turned his attention to Henry without any further teasing.

The body of their latest suspect, a fifty year old man who’d dropped dead on the sidewalk outside his Wall Street office, was laid out on the slab. He’d been brought in directly, having somehow died in the crush of people walking to and from work without anyone seeing the murder and how it was done.

“Got a clue as to the murder weapon?” Hanson asked. “Because we’ve still got nothing from the scene.”

She and Hanson stopped opposite Henry, the body between them, Lucas at the feet and taking notes on a clipboard. The corpse was on its side, and Henry gestured to its back.

“Not precisely, but we’ve found its entry point. It was something small and perfectly round, approximately six millimetres in diameter, judging by this hole in his back, and it went straight through the heart. Come take a look.”

Jo circled the table to join Henry, frowning at the puncture.

“It really is perfectly round,” she muttered. “What punches a perfect hole in someone?”

“That’s a very good—“

Henry was cut off by a moan—from the mouth of the dead man.

Jo screamed, automatically putting a hand where the butt of her weapon would be as she flung herself back. She knocked into Henry, who caught her with a grunt of surprise. Simultaneously, the sheet covering the bottom part of the body twitched, and with an abrupt spasm, the leg of the corpse jerked slightly. Hanson, eyes wide with bald-faced terror, instantly and instinctively hauled back his fist and slugged the corpse in the face.

“Augh, what are you doing!” Lucas cried, leaping forward as the force of Hanson’s punch tilted the body forward and set it leaning sufficiently off-balance that it started to slither from the table. “No! No, stay on there you big-ass mother,” Lucas wheezed, trying to catch it before it went over, trying to work the arms and legs of the body weighing as much as he did back onto the table. “Little—little help here, Doc?”

But at Jo’s back, Henry was laughing so hard that when he released Jo he doubled over, holding his stomach as he choked himself into silence with the force of his mirth. Jo, her limbs shaky with adrenaline, clutched the empty slab beside her, goggling at Lucas struggling with the stiff corpse. She was pretty sure her heart had completely stopped beating for a few seconds, and was now making up for lost time.

“What the everloving _fuck_ was that?” Hanson demanded, backing away with his hands in the air, face pale and looking like he was going to collapse. “I have _never_ seen a freakier goddamned thing, and I have been on this job for twelve years! What the hell is going on?”

“Okay, okay, think I got it,” Lucas huffed, shoving and pushing. “You people are lucky I lift weights.”

“Lucas,” Henry gasped between guffaws, waving a hand towards him, his face red and tears in his eyes as he tried to talk. “Tell them. Oh your _faces_ , Detectives! I can’t—oh, _priceless_.”

Lucas finished manhandling the corpse back onto the table and rearranged the sheet to modestly cover it, his face twisted up in a grimace.

“Short answer? Gas and muscle spasms. Sometimes the body contracts and sets the muscles going, or the gas inside builds up and releases past the vocal cords or just through tissue that makes enough noise to be freaky as hell. Not usually that vigorous, but yeah, weird stuff happens in the morgue. Spend enough time with dead bodies, eventually you’ll see it all.” Lucas plucked off his gloves and tossed them in the bin, pushing past Henry. “Ugh, I smell like dead guy.”

“Go, go,” Henry said, his giggles finally fading. “I’ll clean this up. Have a good weekend.”

Lucas scampered out of the lab, going for the locker room, and was out the doors muttering under his breath the whole way.

“I think I need to go change my underwear after that,” Hanson said, wiping the back of his hand across his forehead. He scowled when he saw the giggles Henry was still trying and failing to suppress, and levelled a finger at him. “Jo, this case is all yours. I am not coming back in here until,” he swung the finger around towards the corpse, “that bastard is gone.”

“I think you’ve adequately subdued him, Detective. I’m sure he won’t bother you again,” Henry said, managing to finally keep his voice level, but his eyes were dancing. “But I’ll ask you to refrain from assaulting my patients in the future.”

“I am outta here. Day’s done, I’m going for a drink,” Hanson muttered. “See ya Monday, Jo.”

“Yeah,” Jo managed, still staggered by the fright she’d had. “Bye.”

Hanson fled and Jo turned to Henry who was still snickering quietly.

“Henry, that was messed up. I have no idea how you work here.”

“Ah, Jo, I have to tell you.” Henry took her by the shoulders, his face cracked wide with the most genuine smile she’d ever seen on his face. “I believe that to be one of the funniest things I’ve seen in my entire life. I’m sorry for the laugh at your expense, but that was a thing of beauty.”

“That scared the crap out of me,” Jo admitted, and then she started to giggle. Henry pulled her into a hug, his own laughter matching hers as he patted her on the back, the smell of his cologne a pleasant change from the stale odours of the morgue. She buried her face in his shoulder, letting the laughter take over, her limbs tingling with leftover adrenaline. Funniest thing he’d seen in two hundred years, sure—but oh, death was frightening and weird. Leave it to Henry to find the humour in it. “I’ve never seen anything like that before.”

“That’s the best part about life—just when you think you’ve seen it all, something surprises you.”

She lifted her head and her cheek brushed against Henry’s, rough with stubble, before they were face to face. He looked into her eyes, still for a moment, his hands spread flat on her back and holding her body to his. Jo held her breath, sharply aware of the intimacy of the moment.

But Henry didn’t linger or give her a chance to consider what to do with the opportunity; with a last brief squeeze and a pat on her back, Henry released her and began to tidy up the mess all the fracas had made, humming quietly to himself.

She leaned her hip back against the empty slab behind her, her heart abruptly pounding anew as Henry went about his work.

Jo watched, absorbed by the grace in his movements and bounce in his step. When Henry’s eyes drifted past the corpse he chuckled lightly to himself, and Jo smiled at the sound, the pleasant flush of what had started in his arms spreading to warm her whole body. Henry found such pleasure in little things, seizing hold of joyful moments and letting it fill him down to his core, and she envied him that simple skill. It wasn’t the first time she’d see him nearly giddy over a new discovery, or the thrill of knowledge, or the excitement of a puzzle to be solved. Henry had a talent for finding the joy in life. She could learn a thing or two from him about how to do that.

But looking at Henry now, Abe’s carefully treasured picture came to mind; Henry holding his son, content, filled with easy joy. This was bigger than little moments.

Henry was _happy_.

She was captured by his buoyant mood; she wished she could keep that smile on his face for as long as she knew him. Maybe it wasn’t so terrible a thing to wish happiness for him, and for herself. She wanted to hang onto this light feeling, like there was a point to a life that kept marching on, one she thought had ended for her. It was easy to focus on all the reasons why it would be such a bad idea—she couldn’t even start to think of them all, there were so many fears lurking just beneath her conscious thoughts—but at this moment, right now…

She wished she’d kissed him.

“I’m almost done here,” Henry said as he looked at her over his shoulder. He tossed away his gloves and strode off towards his office, calling back to her. “Without more concrete information, I’m afraid there are no leads I can give you at this point. No need to delay the start of your weekend on my account, I’ll be packed up shortly.”

“Or I could wait,” she blurted. “We could grab a drink? Unless you have plans.”

Henry pivoted on his heel, pausing, and she folded her arms tightly, suddenly nervous. He nodded, smiling.

“It would be a pleasure. Give me a few minutes to get the body in the fridge and I’ll join you.”

She glanced at the corpse lying next to her under the sheet.

“I think I’ll wait in the hall, okay?”

Henry’s chuckle followed her out of the morgue.

She waited in the hallway for a while, checking her phone for messages and trying to set aside the flutter of anticipation that was building up in her stomach. She wasn’t entirely sure what she was doing, only that she wasn’t quite ready to leave it yet. Henry joined her as promised, and the gentle weight of his hand on her lower back as he walked into the elevator with her was comforting.

She looked to her side, to Henry’s profile—chin lifted as he waited out their ascent from the basement level to the first floor, his eyes bright and alert. He quickly noticed her inspection and shifted his attention to her, curious but at ease. When she didn’t say anything, the corner of his mouth curled up in amusement.

“Everything alright?”

“Yeah, I think it is.”

His smile faded, his expression turning vulnerable. His mouth parted and he licked his lips, and with a thrill of nerves she knew he would kiss her again if she were willing. His inspection lasted until the elevator doors opened, and then with a sheepish duck of his head he looked away from her, extending his hand and letting her exit the elevator before him.

He offered her his arm and Jo took it, the both of them walking in the mild spring evening air, and with a sigh she leaned her head against his shoulder.

The decision was already made, the opportunity there for the taking. It was only a matter of Jo catching up and letting herself have what she wanted.

 

***

 

The sun had warmth even in its last rays, which was such a beautiful relief from the cloudy, chill spring, and so they ended up walking instead of stopping for a drink. Henry basked in the simple pleasure of it, enjoying the reawakening of the world, and Jo’s company. They reached the waterfront and leaned on a railing overlooking the water, soaking in the meagre warmth.

“I haven’t come down this way in a while,” Henry said, looking around at the skyline. “I live in this city, but stick to my well-travelled routes. Next thing I know, I turn around and it looks completely different.”

He scanned the towering heights, almost able to blink and see the flat estuary, the marsh grass, the belching smoke. Eventually he noticed Jo’s silence, and he returned his attention to her, to meet her eyes as she studied him looking out at the city. She was trying to suss out something this evening, though he couldn’t imagine what it was. He was about to ask what was occupying her thoughts when she spoke.

“Do you miss it?” she asked.

“What?”

“The way things used to be.”

He tried to imagine a possible answer; the world had changed in so many thousands of ways in his extended lifetime that it would be hard to pick a single point that defined the world that he missed. Even though it changed faster than he could keep up at times, he’d been dragged along in the flow.

“I’m not a time traveller,” he answered with a smile. “I’ve seen the world change. I’ve tried to change with it. I succeed, at times. Fail spectacularly at others.”

Jo knocked her shoulder against his side with a teasing expression, then leaned against him and wedged herself under his arm. A little bemused by her unexpected affection this evening, he put an arm around her and pulled her close, unwilling to argue with it. He’d wanted to do this since he’d released her from that hug in the morgue, quickly done before he’d pursued some foolish and impulsive action. He wasn’t entirely clear where Jo’s boundaries lay at the moment, but for now he smiled and relaxed at having the freedom to hold her like this.

“You do alright,” she said, her cheek against his shoulder.

“I’ve fallen behind again,” he admitted. “I lost touch for a while. Abe’s tried to drag me kicking and screaming into the era of smart phones and microwaves, but I’m…” There was nothing for it. He was growing apart from the world. It startled him how quickly it could happen.

“Don’t worry, I’ll catch you up,” Jo said. He looked at her in surprise, and she smiled, meeting his eye. “I’ve got to at least teach you to use a cell phone. Seriously, Henry, it’s way past time.”

He chuckled, and despite himself, nodded.

“You might just wear me down, if anyone can.”

It was true. She was dragging him back, like a lifeline in a relentless current. He didn’t want to see her sail away, out of sight, while he floundered; he wanted to chase her, to keep up, to be part of the world she lived in. She made him want to be a part of this life around him instead of fading away with all the rest of the antiques in Abe’s shop.

She had a cheeky smile, something borne of victory and fondness, and he was tempted once again to kiss her, but remembered himself and looked away out towards the water, clearing his throat in embarrassment. She’d made herself clear and he’d respect the line she’d drawn no matter how difficult that became. He certainly wouldn’t trade anything for as much as she offered him. He lowered his head, rubbing his hand on her arm and holding her close to him.

Her breath was warm on his cheek, followed quickly by the feel of her lips brushing against his skin. He froze as his heart clenched with painful intensity. Without meaning to, he half-turned his face towards the warmth of her skin to let the corner of his mouth be against her cheek, as though he could steal a bit more connection from her. Patience had never been his greatest virtue where his heart was concerned, but he ruthlessly stopped himself from more. She was leading this adventure, and he’d long since realized he’d follow wherever she meant to take them, whether he understood the path or not.

She withdrew and he steeled himself to look at her. Her expression was serious and calm, eyes searching his face to assess his reaction, and her brows drew together when she registered his mood.

“Sorry,” she said, and it was almost a question. “Didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“‘Uncomfortable’ is not the word I’d use for how I feel right now,” he said lightly, but his voice was uneven. His heartsickness got the better of him and he put his hand to her cheek, stroking it gently. “Jo—whatever you want from me, you have it. Anything. I hope you know that.”

The confession was free of him before he could consider the wisdom of it, and she tilted her head, blinking rapidly as her eyes took on a shine in the evening light. She swallowed hard and then tugged lightly at his coat lapel to bring him closer. He let her pull him to her, his heart in his throat as she slowly moved to kiss him, hesitating briefly, seeming to gauge his reaction before pressing her mouth to his.

Kissing her was like relief, the strength of his reaction so powerful he was light-headed and overwhelmed by it. He hadn’t realized how deeply she ruled him until he had permission to let these feelings free of their cage, hadn’t foreseen the way his hands would shake as he brought his other hand to cup her face, the way his breath felt trapped in his chest, his affection for her so strong it was akin to pain.

She broke off the kiss, grazing her lips against his jaw, and he pulled her to him in a tight hug. She wrapped her arms around him and buried her face against the crux of his neck and shoulder. He squeezed her tight, revelling in the feel of holding her, the solid warmth of her body in his arms.

“You scare me, you know,” she murmured into his coat.

He kissed the side of her head, her hair smooth and soft against his lips, and tried to set aside the twinge of hurt.

“I promise you, if I could change, I would.”

She pulled back, sniffing, and he frowned to see her face damp. She shook her head, wiping at her eyes quickly.

“No, not that.” She toyed with his scarf, then ran her hand lightly over his chest, smoothing at his clothes, before looking up at him again. “I mean you’re important to me. And it’s not—not something I thought I’d be feeling. I’d ever feel again. And sometimes, that’s a little much. Sometimes I still feel like I’m not supposed to be happy, like I had my shot at it, and now it’s gone. And yet…you.”

He brushed the backs of his fingers against her cheek and smiled at her unguarded sincerity. She so rarely let her defences down, rarely gave him the honesty of her thoughts. But her confessed truth was familiar. He’d spent years clinging to a grief he thought of as his new companion in life, telling himself it was all he could ever expect after losing everything he held dear.

And yet, Jo.

“That I understand.” He ran his fingers along the line of her temple and then around her ear, enjoying the freedom to do so, taking a simple pleasure in seeing the way it coaxed a smile out of her. “I didn’t expect to meet someone like you. You make me…”

He trailed off the thought, his throat closing around the words. She made him want to live. To seize what life had to offer, to run with it. To look around at the world as though it had colour again, had experiences worth being part of. He wanted to learn, and see, and do, because she woke an energy in him that he thought had died long ago.

She caught his hand, trapping it in hers, a faint expression of concern painting her features.

“Make you what?”

“Happy.” He shrugged, unable to express it in more than this one simple term. “You make me happy.”

She smiled, and it grew wider until she laughed out loud, and he was pulled along with her until he was laughing too.

“Well, we have to be the only two people who would manage to get all upset about being happy,” she chuckled.

“Probably so,” he agreed, delighting in her lighthearted grin.

Her smile dimmed a little and she glanced away from him, out to the water, some thought working its way to the surface. Finally looked back at him, quieter, more serious again.

“Do you think we’d be—we’d be here, like this, if you hadn’t...”

“If I hadn’t died in front of you?” he finished for her. She nodded, avoiding his eyes, and he slid his fingertips along the line of her jaw to the point of her chin, briefly touching the soft line of her lips before dropping his hand to take hers. “I would have always done anything I could to save you. But telling you after? I don’t think I would have if I hadn’t already—well. But I did. I don’t know, I suppose. Possibly.”

He left it there, knowing that his babbling explanation revealed too much, probably far more than she wanted from him right now.

Instead of letting him avoid it, she prodded him, her mouth tilted in a half-smile.

“If you hadn’t what?”

He swallowed. To think it in the un-worded privacy of his own mind was one thing, but to say it aloud was another. It would be true then, inescapable. He took a deep breath.

“If I hadn’t already been falling in love with you.”

She studied him, trapping him in the aftermath of his confession, her attention giving it form and life, until he felt nearly suffocated by the weight of it. His heart was hers, whether she wanted it or not. He’d known that for a while now, but now she did too.

“You really don’t do things halfway, do you?”

He shook his head mutely. He couldn’t be anything less than honest with her. It would be wrong. She had to know, already—Jo wasn’t a fool. No matter Henry’s silence, he’d been transparent to her since she’d learned the truth about him. Even before then, she’d read him with uncanny ease. He was such a fool for love; always had been, even if he’d spent the last twenty years turning tail and running from even the possibility of it.

With a growing smile she tugged at his coat again and he let her pull him into another kiss, one that was warmer, deeper. He put his arms around her, hope swelling in him until it overtook him, bringing with it painful joy. He didn’t even bother to try and fight it. He couldn’t any longer.

She was bright, shining, new, and alive. So, so, alive. He was awake for the first time in ages and his heart fairly burst with it. He was a part of this world, a part of her, and she a part of him.

 

***

 

_**New York, 1945** _

_With each day that passed, as Henry grew to know Abigail more, as she learned more about him, he realized that while everything had changed with revealing his immortality to her, in truth very little had changed at all._

_He loved her, and she loved him. He was immortal and she knew, and yet merrily cast it aside with a flip of her hand as though it were another of his traits, like his penchant for after-dinner cognac or fondness for motor cars. Even when his insecurity revealed his hand, she merely shook her head at him._

_“You are still you, Henry,” she said with impatience, though a faint smile lurked around the edges of it. She was lying against his side, her skin warm against his in the New York hotel bed, Abraham dozing quietly in the cot beside them. “You didn’t change into someone else just because you told me. You’re still the same man I fell in love with.”_

_Her quiet faith rattled the blockade against the world he’d spent over a century building, one that was set to fall at any moment, should he stay with her any longer. She sparkled and was alive, and he felt himself waking up in her presence._

_“What do we do now?” Henry asked. The sheets and blanket moved as she shifted to raise herself and look at him, her skin pale and glowing in the faint light of the moon through the curtains._

_“Whatever we want.” She laid a kiss on his nose, and he smiled. “We live our lives. That’s all we can do. Stop worrying about what’s going to happen, and enjoy what is happening. Alright? It will all work out for the best.”_

_She leaned down to kiss him, and he pulled her to him, tucking her close._

_She made him want to live._

 

***

 

Jo’s fingers were stroking over his cheek, her eyes tracking the movements across his skin, and then threaded into the hair at his temple, her fingertips travelling the same route as when she’d first touched him in the hospital upon waking. Unlike that uncertain moment, he leaned into the comfort of her touch, lulled and soothed by the sensation, his trust in her absolute. Though his happiness couldn’t completely obscure his fears and worries, they were a dull, faded shadow compared to their normal looming cast.

She knew him—knew him more completely than he thought it possible for someone to know him—and was still here with him. Even if it all ended tomorrow, he would be a better man for loving her.

“What happens now, Henry? How is this going to work?”

“I don’t know,” he confessed. “I think we take it a day at a time and see.”

She nodded and settled against him, holding him tight in the fading sunlight. He closed his eyes, embracing her as the miracle she was. For once, he was living in the present. More than that, he was excited for the future.

Bright, new, and unknown—and he was looking forward to every minute of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I could not have done with without the endless, patient guidance of [pipsqueak119](http://archiveofourown.org/users/pipsqueak119/pseuds/pipsqueak119) with her wickedly sharp intuition of characterization to keep me on track, and [washingwater](http://archiveofourown.org/users/WashingWater/pseuds/WashingWater) with her detail-oriented eye finding all my silly mistakes, and [spacecadet72](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Spacecadet72/pseuds/Spacecadet72) for the encouragement, enthusiasm for the good stuff, and listening to me whine more than her fair share. I can't say thank you enough to you all.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has reviewed, reblogged, cheered me on, and read throughout the posting of this fic, (which is officially the longest story I've ever written). This is the best fandom I've ever been in - you guys are amazing, and have been so incredibly kind and supportive. THANK YOU!!!!
> 
>  
> 
> (oh, and the thing with the moaning corpse? thank you to the reddit [hilarious morgue mishaps](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1q5yk6/morgue_workers_of_reddit_whats_the_weirdest_story/) thread for the inspiration!)

**Author's Note:**

> There's a very short morning after tag scene [here!](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3099611/chapters/10395384)


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